The New Tunisian Order

The involution of the democratic institutions that had characterised the post-2011 Tunisia has reached a tipping point between the end of last year and the first months of 2023, a tumultuous time in which President Kais Saied has made his final push to establish a new order. The institutional overhaul operated by Saied has changed the face of Tunisia beyond recognition, dismantling step by step one of the most progressive constitutions of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and depoliticising the public space at the same time. Initially supported by a large fragment of the public opinion, Saied’s authoritarian drift has indeed been associated with a political reset aimed at delegitimising the political opposition to the President’s grand design. Its main pillars were the revision of the 2014 Constitution, achieved not without significant challenges with the referendum held last July; and general elections to renew a parliament first suspended and then dissolved during the constitutional crisis of March 2022…