The July 25th Path, Democracy, and Dictatorship in Tunisia

It has been three years since Kais Saied activated Tunisia’s emergency clause, marking the point of departure from the 2014 constitution and commencing the July 25^th path. Elements of the Saied regime remain inchoate. The precise division of powers between the legislature’s two bodies remains undefined. Constitutionally mandated institutions, such as the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Council of Education, remain unformed. The long-standing cornerstone of Saied’s vision for economic development–a penal reconciliation plan whereby corrupt business people make amends by returning the country’s looted wealth and funneling it into local development projects–is proceeding at a glacial pace. And there is enormous uncertainty regarding what an election will look like with the president on the ballot.

But the contours of Saied’s regime are also far clearer today than they were three summers ago. The country has a new constitution and newly elected bicameral legislature. Political parties no longer play an important public role in organizing political pluralism and representation. A reshaped judiciary has shown a willingness to prosecute journalists, Saied’s political opponents, and civil society activists and to deny them the due process that would come with ordinary charges. These groups continue their work, but do so in a renewed climate of fear. The president looms over all political matters like a colossus.

What lessons can we take from Tunisia’s descent into personalist rule? What might comparative politics research on democratic backsliding or breakdown teach us? What are some different scenarios for the future and what can other countries’ experiences tell us about the possible paths back to democracy in Tunisia?

Wishful thinking

According to some of the cross-national measures of democracy developed by political scientists and democracy-focused NGOs, Tunisia’s transition to democracy was the most dramatic one in the world in the last 30 years. According to the simplest measure of electoral democracy developed by the Varieties of Democracy project, one must go all the way back to the early 1990s and the democratic transitions in Chile, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Slovenia to find any country whose quality of electoral democracy improved more than Tunisia’s over any span of five years or less. According to the same measures, Tunisia’s democratic breakdown has been similarly remarkable. Aside from the slide experienced by Burkina Faso between 2018 and 2023, one has to go back to the aftermath of Suriname’s 1980 coup to find a more dramatic democratic breakdown than Tunisia’s after the coup.

Shortly after the July 25 coup, there were several reasons for optimism that Tunisia’s departure from democratic constitutional rule would be short-lived. Saied legitimized his actions through reference to the country’s hard-won 2014 constitution, albeit his highly idiosyncratic and self-serving reading of it. He claimed to be applying the law in activating article 80. He claimed to be freezing the parliament rather than dissolving it because the latter, he conceded, would be beyond his constitutional powers. (He later dissolved the parliament.) Even after Saied abrogated parts of the constitution in September 2021, he continued to insist that he would protect the rights and freedoms that my research has suggested Tunisians cherished more than the constitutional balance of powers. 

Saied seemed an unlikely dictator, an image that he repeatedly referenced on his first steps down the July 25 path. Running for office, one of his central campaign messages was that he had little interest in power. Saied did not register for the 2019 elections until the last moment and then barely campaigned. When he did, he maintained that he was merely explaining a point of view with no concern for whether it got him into office or resulted in policy. Pressed for specifics on how he would implement his vision if elected, Saied claimed to be content to lecture and allow others to “bear their historical responsibility.” Upon his advancement to the second round of the presidential elections in 2019, al-Jazeera ran an article under the headline “He’s just not interested in power.”

As president, Saied continued to try to burnish this image as a reluctant leader. He initially refused to live in the presidential palace. Despite winning the presidency in a landslide, he refused to propose legislation. When political parties in parliament asked him to form his own government in 2020, he refused. Even after seizing extraordinary powers on July 25, 2021, Saied continued to portray himself as a modern Cincinnatus. Would a wannabe dictator really look so much like an old law professor? Saied invited Tunisians to ask.

Beyond Saied’s rhetoric lay other reasons for optimism. Over the course of ten years as a democracy, Tunisia had developed many of the institutions thought to be critical to preserving democracy. Many observers suggested that the network of civil society associations and the trade unions could form a bulwark against a power grab. Tunisian civil society had been critical to the uncertain and crisis-pocked transition from Ben Ali’s departure to constituent assembly elections. And it had been even more so during the summer 2013 political crisis when the president of the constituent assembly also suspended that body.

Finally, Saied was declaring himself the savior of a country with severe social and economic problems and he did not seem to have a clear plan for putting it back on track. In 2018, journalist Zied Krichen mused that the social unrest in Tunisia was so great that neither Hitler nor Mussolini could govern Tunisia. This was before the COVID-19 pandemic depressed the GDP by almost 9 percent and wreaked havoc on the country’s social situation. In other countries, such as Venezuela under Chavez, Russia under Putin, or Turkey under Erdogan, an economic boom that immediately preceded or followed the election of a new leader was critical to the ability of that leader to aggrandize their power. But Kais Saied would never be confused with Vladimir the Lucky.

Comparative politics of July 25

The last three years have illustrated the mistaken assumptions underlying many of these strands of wishful thinking that followed July 25. Despite the association of the word “coup” with speed, violence, and men with guns, Saied’s gradual, sequential, and legalistic approach to accumulating power was actually quite consistent with the ways democracies have broken down in other parts of the world in recent decades, at least before the recent string of coups in West Africa.

Saied may not wear epaulets or a beret, but these are no longer the trappings of the modern autocrat, as a figure such as Peru’s Alberto Fujimori makes clear. Even prior to the coup, Saied showed at least one hallmark of autocratic populist behavior, demonizing opposition and questioning the possibility of differences of opinion within the Tunisian citizenry. Moreover, the means by which Saied aggrandized his power loosely resemble those employed by other autocrats. In their influential book How Democracies Die, political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt argue that in recent years subversion of democracy usually “begins slowly,” features a “veneer of legality,” and takes place ostensibly in service of democratic goals.

Levitsky and Ziblatt compare the subversion of democracy to a football match where dictators “capture the referees,” “sideline” some of the star players, and “rewrite the rules of the game.” Saied’s subjugation of the judiciary, which escalated in February 2022 with the dissolution of the Supreme Judicial Council and in June 2022 with the firing of 57 magistrates, has been arguably as important to his consolidation of power as was his dissolution of the legislature or promulgation of a new constitution. The broad application of the 2015 counterterrorism law and the new law on misinformation (Decree Law 54) have led to the arrest and imprisonment of a broad set of politicians, activists, and journalists, creating a climate of fear for those who might otherwise dare oppose the president.

Beyond the judiciary, purges and their threat have been key to Saied’s ability to drag the state with him on the July 25 path. The president has actively turned over the leadership of the interior ministry and has replaced the leaders and members of other state institutions. Saied’s stump speech regularly refers to unnamed actors in and outside the country who supposedly want to destroy the Tunisian state. He has used this theory to divert blame for government failures. He has also used it as a justification to task his prime minister with the “purification” of the administration—a task that has not yet been extensively implemented. This discourse may find a sympathetic ear among Tunisians frustrated with the quality of public services, as well as those who suspect that Ennahdha dispensed public sector jobs as patronage. But it is also a threat that may dissuade public sector workers or their family members from considering opposition activity. On this matter, the president’s deliberate pace has allowed a lingering threat to discipline possible opposition without requiring action.

The president and his supporters have hamstrung organized civil society in similar ways. In February 2022, around the time that Saied dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council, a draft law imposing new regulations of civil society activity leaked to the public. Shortly thereafter, the president began to beat the drum for new restrictions, painting NGOs as fronts for political parties, conduits for corruption, and puppets of foreign powers. The government stopped short of passing the new law, which would have sparked international and domestic backlash. But chilling civil society activity never depended fully on overhauling the law.

Civil society activists continue their work, but they must navigate a myriad of new obstacles. Police have arrested activists working in some domains, such as LGBTQ rights or migrant rights, and have also restricted access to peaceful assembly. Beyond these domains, political groups supportive of the president, such as the Tunisian Nationalist Party, have launched public campaigns to smear and intimidate organizations that have received foreign funding. Some groups report that some restaurants and hotels, concerned about their interests, have begun to refuse to rent space to activists and banks have begun to require more and arbitrary documentation to allow access to accounts. Meanwhile, the threat of a newly restrictive civil society law continues to loom, especially after parliament began to debate a draft in late 2023.

Saied has also taken measures to shape the public sphere. Opposition figures no longer appear on the national public news, except as the subject of reports alleging crimes, a significant development in a country where the evening news on Wataniya 1 retains a loyal following. Critical voices still make their way onto the airwaves of Tunisian radio and onto social media, but this should not be taken as evidence of a climate of free speech. As Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman point out in their new book Spin Dictators, modern authoritarian regimes usually implement censorship in a “deliberately partial” way–preserving some critical media to disarm arguments about repression, to preserve channels for disseminating quality information, and to occasionally “borrow credibility.” But the widespread use of Decree Law 54 against journalists has undoubtedly made criticism a perilous exercise.

Saied has also taken measures to make it less likely that one of his elections could be lost. In 2022, Saied replaced the members of the election commission. Although its members continued to avow their independence, they repeatedly took decisions that favored the president, including allowing the president to revise the draft constitution after a legal deadline imposed for the 2022 referendum. ًWith the presidential election approaching, the commission has attracted criticism for its accommodations of what seems to be Saied’s will to restrict competition. Rather than waiting for the parliament to pass a new electoral law compliant with the 2022 constitution, for example, ISIE issued a regulatory order updating the electoral law according to its reading of the constitution. Journalists have seized upon some of the requirements, such as the requirement that all candidates present a copy of their criminal record (Bulletin no. 3), as indications that the Saied regime will make it hard to run.

Indeed, multiple prospective candidates have claimed to have been denied these documents without explanation. Other prospective candidates have suffered a worse fate. Abir Moussi, who was arrested last October under Decree 54 at the complaint of ISIE, was recently sentenced to two years in prison. In July, prominent politician Lotfi Mreihi was convicted of vote buying on charges stemming from 2019, sentenced to eight months in prison, and given a lifetime ban from competing in elections. This week, four other candidates, including the prominent former leader in Ennahdha Abdellatif Mekki, were given the same punishment on allegations of fraudulently procuring signature endorsements to qualify for the campaign. Many other political leaders remain behind bars.

Like other modern dictators, Saied employs what Guriev and Treisman refer to as “spin,” meaning an effort to reshape citizens’ beliefs about the world through communication. Saied is a repetitive communicator who develops slogans–”no return to behind,” “war of liberation,” “purification of the administration” etc.–and hammers them into his audience. Like other illiberal populists, Saied has shown a penchant for vague conspiracy theories, alleging that everything from the presence of sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia to the choice of plants in the gardens on Avenue Habib Bourguiba are part of a plot to damage Tunisia. 

But Saied is not a typical “spin dictator.” Although he has taken some efforts to rhetorically defend the importance of civil liberties and occasionally to criticize excessive repression, his regime is not going to great lengths to hide its repression. Whereas many spin dictators harass opposition through the repeated application of short sentences for what appear to be nonpolitical crimes, such as illegal elk hunting in the case of Alexei Navalny or sodomy in the case of Anwar Ibrahim, Saied’s regime is regularly suspending due process and imposing lengthy sentences for nakedly political charges.

Many of Saied’s political opponents have been charged with money laundering, a crime that could be apolitical. But this charge, covered by the antiterrorism law, also facilitates a suspension of due process. And Saied’s regime has been prosecuting opposition for criticism, as in the case of Sonia Dahmani, and for other obviously political charges such as incitement in the case of Moncef Marzouki or conspiring against the state. And the regime is imposing lengthy sentences, such as the eight-year sentence given to Marzouki in absentia, the two year sentence given to Moussi, or the 18 months served so far by the defendants in the case of “conspiring against state security.” This heavy-handed repression evinces a lack of concern with possible international criticism. It also suggests a regime fairly confident that excessive repression will not stoke opposition.

Saied differs from many modern dictators in other ways. Saied’s public criticism of political parties is hardly unusual these days; only political scientists admit to liking political parties. But many of the presidents of other countries to recently parlay elections into authoritarian erosion have either captured existing parties or created their own parties, including Umaro Sissoco Embaló in Guinea-Bissau and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. Although Benin’s Patrice Talon has maintained an independent status, he clearly accepts the support of two parties in parliament. And even though a number of political parties have vied for the mantle of July 25, Saied has so far kept them at an arm’s length.  

Saied also differs from other autocrats in the way he stakes his claim to legitimacy. The Tunisian president is no clone of Lee Kuan Yew or, to use a more recent example, Patrice Talon, leaders who stake their legitimacy on their ability to generate economic growth through competence and knowledge of business. In fact, Saied’s opponents often accuse him of being bad with numbers. Saied has his admirers, but he is not selling Tunisians on the opportunity to one day join him in living the good life, as Lisa Wedeen claims was the central appeal of Bashar al-Assad’s neoliberal authoritarianism prior to the war. Although Saied has enacted almost every step in the 12-step authoritarian playbook laid out in Larry Diamond’s recent book, the one glaring omission is a clear effort to get rich or enrich his associates. Rather, Saied stakes his appeal on incorruptibility, protection of Tunisian sovereignty, social solidarity with the poor, and an unwavering determination to give public officials a piece of his mind.  

Given the nature of his regime, the president will face several challenges in holding onto his power. First, although public opinion polls have long shown Saied to be popular, the climate of fear has made it difficult and perhaps impossible to assess whether his popularity has eroded. It is possible that Tunisians continue to admire Saied. But there is at least some evidence that many Tunisians are afraid to give their true opinion of the president. Even Saied may be unsure of the true extent of opposition to his rule. The economy remains stagnant with negative growth in GDP per capita last year. This is of course not entirely the president’s fault, but it is also possible that Tunisians will blame Saied for his deliberate pace and his focus on constitutional reform rather than economic recovery.

Even if the president is able to convince Tunisians that he is not to blame, his failure to organize politically has created an inability to mobilize his supporters when he needs them. Turnout has been abysmal at every stage of Saied’s political transition. Demonstrations in support of Saied have also been small. The heavy use of repression in recent months probably diminishes the prospects of political organization to counter Saied, but it also creates a vulnerability in that repression can sometimes create serious backlash.

Paths back to democracy

Just as Tunisia’s “consolidation” of democracy was never permanent, its breakdown need not be. There are many countries–such as Bolivia after 2019, Mali after 2012, or Niger after 2009–that have experienced breakdowns of democracy that have been fleeting. But restoration of democracy undoubtedly becomes more difficult when the breakdown has lasted as long as Tunisia’s. There are plenty of other countries that have re-democratized after longer autocratic spells, including Chile after Pinochet, Uruguay in 1984-85, Argentina after 1983, and Peru after the 2000 ouster of Fujimori. None of these cases have occurred in recent years, however, a period labeled by Larry Diamond as a global “democratic recession.”  

Nonetheless, there are a number of paths by which Tunisian democrats might restore democracy. The most straightforward path would be for somebody to beat Saied in the upcoming elections and then preside over democratizing reform. We do not know how Saied would fare in a fair election open to his most formidable opponents. And we are unlikely to find out, as there are many reasons for skepticism that Saied would hold an election that he could lose. But those who suggest that the election does not warrant focus go too far. Sometimes autocrats think they have set up an election that they cannot lose, and are subsequently proven wrong. Recent elections in Zambia (2021), the Maldives (2018), Malaysia (2018), the Gambia (2016), and Sri Lanka (2015) attest to this fact. Moreover, elections constitute important focal points for opposition beyond the ballot boxes. Even elections that deliver incumbents victory perceived as unfair can spark significant backlash that ultimately triggers major change, as was the case in many of the color revolutions in the early 2000s, as well as more recently in the Kyrgyz Republic (2020).

If Saied manages to navigate the election unscathed, this will not immunize him from future challenges. After the election, Saied may relent on issues such as the political prisoners or the broad application of Decree Law 54. He has already started to distance himself from the lengthy detention of prisoners in the case of conspiring against state security. There has been a movement within the legislature to amend Decree Law 54 and Saied recently celebrated the anniversary of his coup by pardoning 1727 bloggers convicted under that law. Opposition attention will also turn to enforcing the term limit on the presidency, blocking Saied from the next election. Without a political party or even a clear set of alliances, Saied might have trouble either defeating efforts to constrain him or passing the torch to a designated successor. But Saied has also repeatedly demonstrated an ability to impose his interpretation of the rules and Tunisians need no reminder that term limits sometimes do not hold.

Beyond electoral politics, we should not discount the possibility that some other scandal could ignite protests that force the president to relent. Just this summer, mass protests sparked by public employment policy in Bangladesh, economic policy in Nigeria, and the finance law in Kenya have threatened to topple seemingly stable incumbents in those countries. Mass protest could create opportunities for democratization. But as is the case with the possibility of Saied’s defeat in an election, changing the leader may be necessary but not sufficient to enacting democratizing reform.

In that vein, there are also other types of political ruptures that could upend the current regime without likely leading to democracy. Since July 25, 2021, political observers have questioned whether Saied can count on the military’s support in the same way that he seems to be able to count on that of the police. Traditional coups have become much more common in recent years, especially in west Africa. But although these kinds of events often raise hopes for democratization, it is difficult to find an example of a recent coup that led to significant democratization, at least without the accompaniment of mass protest.

Likewise, Saied is getting older and has been rumored to have health problems. A change in leadership would be consequential. A different leader may be better suited to organize economic reform and a different leader may eschew the ugly rhetoric that has imperiled migrants in the country. But just as coups rarely lead to democratization, the death or incapacitation of a dictator also rarely presages significant democratization, at least in the short term. If Tunisia is to return to democracy, it will likely require political activists to find some way to draw ordinary Tunisians back into politics.