New era for Tunisia's Parliament

"We are writing a new page of history, in which the deputies will have to get rid of the mentality that prevailed for ten years". This is how Tunisian President Kais Saied urged the newly constituted Assembly of People's Representatives to become a mere sounding board for his decisions. The message from Tunisia's real strongman was delivered in the town of Ghardimaou, near the Algerian border.  

The new parliament, headed by Brahim Bouderbala, former dean of the Bar Association and a staunch defender of the so-called 25 July Process, by which Saied assumed full powers, will have to validate the president's decisions practically without controversy or discussion, thus rejoining the tradition of the country's providential strongmen, abruptly interrupted with the movement of the so-called "Arab Spring", unleashed precisely in Tunisia. Tunisia is thus the first country to have seen the mirage of a farewell to the authoritarian trappings of power, and the last to abandon that path.  

The country's new constitution, overwhelmingly ratified in a referendum last July 2022, although only 30.5 per cent of voters turned out to vote, grants the president sweeping powers while drastically curtailing those of the people's representatives. Indeed, Tunisia's basic law allows the head of state to dissolve the Assembly of Representatives whenever he sees fit, to rule by decree or to arrogate full powers to himself without any time limit and without any oversight by independent institutions.  

Consequently, the practical translation of all this is that the legislature's control over the executive will be conspicuous by its absence. On top of that, the supposed immunity of MPs is severely limited. It does not cover "offences of insult, defamation or acts of violence committed both inside and outside the Assembly". Nor can deputies use their immunity to obstruct the conduct of parliamentary business.  

In short, with the installation of the new deputies in their seats, "the new Republic" that Kais Saied promised Tunisians when he dissolved the previous Assembly, assumed full powers and launched a constituent project aimed at putting the country back on track, which in his opinion had slid down the slope of extremism and violence and had led Tunisia to a clear regression in its economic parameters, has begun to function.  

The installation of the new Assembly was also preceded by widespread hostility towards sub-Saharan immigrants, following the president's own accusatory statements that the "sharp increase in illegal immigration from sub-Saharan Africa seeks to radically change the country's ethnic and demographic identity". These statements were followed by acts of open hostility and physical aggression in the capital and numerous towns in the country, which have led to the mass departure and repatriation of thousands of immigrants to their countries of origin, mainly Côte d'Ivoire. The president had decreed severe punishments and sanctions for those who harbour or provide work for such Africans who have arrived illegally in Tunisia.  

In this regard, the new president of the legislative chamber, Brahim Bouderbala, one of the main architects of the new constitutional text, said that Tunisia will be "a safe country, so that foreign investors and tourists can feel fully protected".