COVID-19, vaccine shortage and adjustment: the keys to the social and political crisis in Tunisia

Talk on the phone and beg. Ask for help knowing it will never come. Suddenly he collapses. He begins to cry from helplessness. The director of the public hospital in Mateur, in the Bizerte region, has not slept for days. Him and his doctors They are on duty 72 hours before the avalanche of patients by the Covid. His crying attracts the attention of Sufien ben Aisa, a journalist with local media ‘Mateur Lelkol’, who films him with his cell phone asking him what is wrong. Drenched in tears, the doctor says that He’s been waiting for an hour for a truck with oxygen tubes that doesn’t arrive. He has 40 patients in critical condition and if the truck does not arrive in another hour at least half of them could die. Neither the doctor nor the journalist suspected at the time that this video of what just happened would go viral on social media and fuel the worst political and social crisis in Tunisia since the start of the Arab Spring in 2011.

In the past two weeks, cases of coronavirus infections have skyrocketed. Vaccines are trickling in. Only 8% of the population received both doses. The death toll is increasing exponentially, last week’s daily average was 200. The death rate of 1.4 per 100,000 inhabitantsIt is “the highest” in the region, warned the World Health Organization. Tunisia managed to contain the first wave of the pandemic with only 50 deaths. But so far in 2021 already death toll exceeds 17,600 in a population of 11.6 million.

In this context, Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, A technocrat who took office last August decided to sack Health Minister Fauzi Mehdi – the fifth minister in this portfolio in the past 18 months – accusing him of make “criminal” and “populist” decisions, after opening the walk-in vaccination for all adults during the full Eid al Adha holiday. The measure of the “open doors” during the two days that the most important Muslim holiday lasts caused a great crowd in the vaccination centers and a great general disappointment when we quickly learned that there were not enough doses. The day after, President Kais SaiedIn one of its characteristic effects, it put the health crisis in the hands of the military. One more round in a long series of fights between Saïd, a protestor who took office at the end of 2019, Prime Minister Mechichi and the Speaker of Parliament, moderate Islamist leader Rachid Ghanuchi.

Tunisians are already fed up with the balance of power among politicians that emerged after the revolt of December 17, 2010, considered to be the start of what was later called the Arab Spring which led to the fall of Gaddafi in Libya and Mubarak in Egypt and uprisings throughout the region. The Covid crisis, which in this country has particularly affected children, a deep economic crisis and videos on networks like that of the director of the hospital desperate by the lack of oxygen, have led to a climate of power vacuum and enormous uncertainty. Sunday saw a long day of protests against the government and the largest party in parliament, moderate Islamist Ennahda. Almost midnight Said invoked the constitution to impeach Prime Minister Mechichi and decree the suspension of parliament for 30 days.

A large number of Tunisians they felt justified with the measure and took to the streets to celebrate in support of Said. But Rached Ghannouchi, Speaker of Parliament and leader of Ennahda, who has played an important role in successive coalition governments, denounced the measures as a coup and an attack on democracy. In the early hours of Monday, Ghannouchi arrived at parliament where he announced he would call a session in defiance of Saied, but the military stationed outside the building prevented the 80-year-old former political exile from entering. . “I am against the gathering of all the powers in the hands of one person”he said outside the parliament building. Previously, he called on Tunisians to take to the streets, as they did on the day of the 2011 revolution, to oppose this measure. Hundreds of Ennahda activists clashed with Saied supporters while the police tried to separate the groups. The stones flew from end to end and gunshots were heard. It was only the first battle of a crisis that promises to stay in time.

Saied, is an independent politician who came to power after campaigning as “The bane of a corrupt and incompetent elite.” But as in any parliamentary system, the management of government is in the hands of a Prime Minister appointed by the majority party in legislative power. President has direct responsibility only for foreign affairs and the military. Said says his actions are based on article 80 of the Constitution which would allow him to create a new government in the event of “imminent danger to democracy”. However, the special court required by the 2014 Constitution to settle this type of dispute between the powers of the Tunisian state never settled after years of quarrels on which judges to appoint. Therefore, everything remains in the nebula of interpretation by each faction.

Two of the other main parliamentary parties, Coeur de Tunis and Karama, joined Ennahda in accusing Saied of having committed a coup. Former President Moncef Marzouki, who helped oversee the transition to democracy after the revolution, said it could represent the start of a slope “towards an even worse situation”. And he denounced that Said not only suspended Parliament, but that lifted the immunity of parliamentarians and took control of the attorney general’s office.

Said was provocative: “Whoever shoots a bullet, the armed forces will respond with bullets”, He said. He has the support of a wide range of Tunisians, both Islamists and leftists, who have taken to the streets of the capital to support him, but does not have a strong party structure behind him. The army seized the state radio and television building, while a group of security officers they raided the offices of the Al Jazeera television channel, they cut the transmission while a reporter was broadcasting live and ordered the evacuation of all staff.

Of course, Said will not be hit with authoritarianism alone to stay in power. The economic situation is as desperate as the consequences of the pandemic. The dismissed prime minister, Mechichi, negotiated the fourth loan in 10 years with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which most economists see as crucial to avert an impending fiscal crisis. Tunisia must finance its serious budget deficit and the next payments on the debt already contracted. These are measures deemed necessary to secure the loan but surely impose a new adjustment on Tunisians to end subsidies and job cuts in the public sector. Unemployment reaches 18% and is much higher among the youngest. Said is likely to strike a balance and appoint a new finance minister with a mandate to make incremental cuts, negotiate an extension of debt payments, and maintain some subsidies to contain the pandemic crisis.

So far, he has already had to seek critical medical help from neighboring countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Libya, although the latter closed its borders with Tunisia for fear of the spread of the Delta variant. Said will have to somehow ensure that hospitals don’t collapse and that there will be enough oxygen. Otherwise, he could be the next fired.

KEEP READING: