Scuffles, boycotts, strikes, the battle to define Tunisia’s political future is intensifying. Weighing in with surprising force, the popular UGTT condemned Saied’s dismissal of judges as a ‘terrorism campaign’, a tone met in equal measure by Ennahda. If a closing window of opportunity is animating a fragmented opposition to greater action it is unclear whether this alone will be enough. What are the limits of Saied’s power? Is his support really as shallow as many claim? A new survey indicates that, when it comes to economics, the mood on the street is bleak.
At the same time, Saied’s reform plan is advancing uninterrupted. Launch of his national dialogue has already opened the door to greater presidential powers and a constitution stripped of reference to Islam. Nor did the president show any qualms in cutting the wages of striking judges, sacking over half of the country’s governors, and announcing a subsidy cut for food and energy to be rolled out next year. The latter is likely to prove controversial and drive the wedge with the UGTT further.
The other theatre of worsening North African conflict is Libya, where the ‘stalemate’ may be nothing more than a protracted slide into civil war. With the JMC meeting in Tunis, and talks due to resume in Cairo, is there enough common ground to negotiate a solution? They will certainly need a degree of international consensus behind them. Meanwhile, the UK reopens its embassy in Tripoli - with Russia promising the same - while an embargo on arms deliveries extends for another year.
Further west, Algeria tore up its Treaty of Friendship with Spain, banning Spanish imports and ending co-operation on migration. Coming on the back of overtures to Italy and Turkey, a repositioning in Mediterranean relations may well be underway. Whether it can change the course of Europe’s drift towards Morocco is yet to be seen.
If such forcefulness in foreign policy has not been witnessed in years, at home Tebboune’s ‘New Algeria’ is also at pains to distance itself from the old. This week, Said Bouteflika was sentenced to 8 years for corruption, while Algerian justice went after Bouteflika-era financial elites. However, with only meager concessions granted to the Hirak, is it more accurate to see in Tebboune’s project a restoration of Algeria’s political system rather than departure? Indeed, with journalists continuing to be jailed, and Algerian citizens continuing to die in desperate attempts to reach Europe, little appears to have improved.
In Morocco, it was a quiet week for international reporting. Sahrawi activist Sultana Khaya was released from house arrest, while the summer season is set to bring millions across the Gibraltar straits for the first time since the pandemic. A powerful symbol of Spanish-Moroccan rapprochement, it may well be Germany that is the next source of major Moroccan investment. But with the Western Sahara issue paused and not resolved, is Morocco’s period of European tension really over? Elsewhere, the country agrees to provide security services to Qatar, while France denies visas to its leading phosphates company.
North Africa Watch is a weekly review of literature produced on North Africa across Think Tanks, media organisations, NGOs, IGOs and Governments. Covering multiple languages, the review signposts you to the in-depth articles, Op-Eds, interviews and human-interest stories shaping the conversation on North Africa.
