Tunisia is on edge. With parliament suspended and the prime minister fired, the Arab Spring's sole success story may be on the verge of failure in the place where it all began, says Rainer Sollich.
Advertisement
Image: Fethi Belaid/AFP
In a cloak-and-dagger operation, Tunisian President Kais Saied has dismissed his country's prime minister, Hichem Mechichi, and seized the reins of government himself, at least for the time being. Parliament has been suspended, and the parliament building is surrounded with soldiers. Is this a coup?
Rainer Sollich
That's what the fired members of the Ennahda party, led by parliamentary speaker Rached Ghannouchi, are calling it. Ennahda is an Islamist party, relatively moderate by regional standards, and it holds the majority in the parliament that has just been suspended.
Saied, meanwhile, a lawyer and staunch secularist, sees his intervention as being entirely in accordance with the constitution. He has presented the disempowerment of parliament, prime minister and at least two ministers as a sort of inevitable but temporary political emergency brake, applied as a way to salvage stability in the struggling country.
Advertisement
Further escalation feared
The next weeks, days, perhaps even hours could show which side is right.
The situation in the country is extremely tense. At any moment, even minor outbreaks of violence or street battles, near the parliament building in Tunis, for example, could set in motion uncontrollable dynamics and perhaps even spark a nationwide escalation. What is apparent is that Tunisia's stability and its democratic system are in grave danger.
The opposing camps are irreconcilable, not only at the political level but also on the streets. While some have condemned the "coup" and publicly sworn to defend the "revolution," others have set off fireworks and honked their horns to express joy at the ousting of the Ennahda-backed government, which they accuse of completely failing to deal with either the economic crisis or the COVID-19 pandemic. It's no secret that many Tunisians were enraged by shocking reports about disastrous conditions in Tunisian hospitals and a soaring death toll, and that these had sparked violent protests.
Heading for pseudo-democracy?
But if the political situation in the country now also spirals out of control, it could lead to an even harsher intervention by security forces, very quickly ushering in the de facto end of Tunisia's entire democratic experiment.
In any case, many powerful Arab partner countries in the region would prefer Tunisia to have an authoritarian pseudo-democracy, along Egyptian lines. The sole success of the Arab Spring protests would then ultimately have failed in the very place where it once began so promisingly in 2011, and where it led to greater democratic success than in any other country in the region. All this is now in danger of being squandered.
Tunisia grapples with COVID-19
The coronavirus crisis continues to worsen in Tunisia, with the number of infections rising. Cases of the particularly infectious delta variant have also been registered, and some regions have been sealed off.
Image: Yassine Gaidi/AApicture alliance
Infections on the rise
Tunisia is seeing more coronavirus cases — last week, between 3,500 and 4,000 new infections were reported daily. Tunisian Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi also contracted the virus in a country with little testing, and where many hospitals are overwhelmed by the many COVID-19 patients.
Image: Jdidi Wassim/SOPA Images/picture alliance
Curfews and lockdowns
A night-time curfew has been in place nationwide since October 2020. Depending on the incidence rate, the government has also imposed lockdowns for cities and regions, sealing them off from the outside world, like in the northeastern city of Manouba (photo). Beja, Silyana, Zaghouan and Kairouan report the highest incidence rates.
Image: Yassine Gaidi/AA/picture alliance
Lockdown in Kairouan
Kairouan is located about 150 kilometers southwest of the capital, Tunis. With well over 400 infections per 100,000 inhabitants, the city of about 120,000 inhabitants has one of the country's highest infection rates at present. The square in front of the mosque is normally crowded and bustling with activity. But Kairouan is currently sealed off and looks more like a ghost town.
Image: Yassine Gaidi/AApicture alliance
Ambulances everywhere
Only a few street vendors and stores selling necessary goods remain open. Ambulances are omnipresent, transporting COVID-19 patients to various hospitals in Kairouan.
Image: Yassine Gaidi/AApicture alliance
Makeshift COVID-19 wards
Kairouan has grappled with high infection levels for weeks. The hospitals in the city have been overwhelmed, and special COVID-19 wards were not readily available everywhere. In the meantime, such units have been set up to make sure coronvirus patients are kept far away from regular patients.
Image: Yassine Gaidi/AApicture alliance
Shortage of staff
Thinning medical personnel: Some doctors and members of the already scarce nursing staff have also become infected with the virus. Some patients have to be supplied with oxygen until a hospital bed can be found for them in another city.
Image: Yassine Gaidi/AApicture alliance
Death rate up
At present, 8 to 10 people die of COVID-19 every day in Kairouan. According to official figures, almost 15,000 people have died in Tunisia since the beginning of the pandemic.
Image: Yassine Gaidi/AApicture alliance
Delta variant spreads
Doctors and nurses work round the clock. The Health Ministry, which urges the population to comply with coronavirus measures, said 18 people have been identified so far as having contracted the more contagious COVID-19 delta variant. Seven of them, including children, live in Kairouan, according to a ministry statement.
Image: Yassine Gaidi/AApicture alliance
Slow vaccination campaign
The vaccination campaign in Tunisia is making slow progress. Fewer than 1.8 million of the country's about 11.5 million inhabitants have been vaccinated so far; only about 500,000 of them have received full vaccination protection, according to the Tunisian Health Ministry. It looks doubtful, however, that the country will manage to vaccinate half the population this year as planned.
