As the Constituent Assembly continues, in the midst of omerta of many of its members about the legal purpose behind its creation, the discussion of the draft law on the division of powers, the following truths need to be reminded to those who are part of or outside the Tunisian Islamist party.
Factual truths, as they emanate from actions or steps to take measures. Truths that resonate as much as deadly sins for a party that has made keeping promises divine and banning, particularly, deception, lies and lawlessness, a cardinal rule, unless by that time Ennahdha ends by “putting water in its wine” to use a well known French expression and make more substantial concessions.
1 – Kill to survive: in the power-sharing bill, Ennahdha began by cancelling all laws that preceded or contradicted it. It is thus an act of matricide, killing the founding piece of legislation that created it. We understand, indeed, the repeal of the Decree-Law of March 23, 2011, since the new organization of the government cannot be done concurrently with another piece of legislation that was temporary in nature.
However, had not been the Legislative Decree of May 10, 2011, the Constituent Assembly would not exist. How to explain, however, the repeal of another text, that of May 2011, which was inherently temporary since it relates only to the elections of the Constituent Assembly?
The explanation is, in fact, in the preamble of the piece of legislation that limits the task of the Constituent Assembly to writing a new constitution that allowed it to access the highest positions of the state, restricting now its powers. It terminates it in the name of the same representativeness granted to it by this piece of legislation.
In this preamble, we read indeed: “building on the willingness of the Tunisian people to organize elections for a National Constituent Assembly, which will be entrusted with writing a new constitution for the country” … The bill, maturely reflected before its publication and certainly made in consultation with all political tendencies in place before being drawing up, does not contain any indication of a possible mandate of government membership to members of the next constituent assembly. The Tunisian entire political class, including Ennahdha and its coalition partners, have thus accepted and endorsed the “matricide” of the law that gave them birth.
2 – Misuse of the Law: Without going into the mathematical calculation of the true representation of the Ennahdha in the October 23 elections and of all the population not to annoy Mustapha Ben Jaafar, who did not accept this kind of reasoning, treating it disdainfully of “journalistic” in Wednesday’s meeting of the Constituent Assembly, it is worth remembering that the next government has misused the law. This regards, in fact, Article 19 of the Legislative Decree of May 10, 2011 which forbids that any member of the government be a member of the Constituent Assembly or any other structure where he is an elected member.
For its Prime Minister and Ministers, Ennahdha affords to circumvent the law and allow those whom the Constitution is supposed to monitor and revoke to be part of that same authority that supervises the government action. Thus, Ennahdha circumvents the Law in two aspects: accumulation of powers and separation of powers.
3 – Denial of word: Ennahdha, along with other parties, had pledged to stay only one year. Many of those who did not vote, those who were wrong to vote and those who had misunderstood the true intentions of Ennahdha, rely, in fact, on this relatively, politically, short period of one year, to wake up and shift their votes in the next real elections. Many parties that were fooled by their dreams of presidents and misunderstood their true political dimension and the methods of approach to Tunisian voters also rely on the one-year period to come to terms with their election defeat, challenge themselves and better see the truth of Tunisia and review their methods.
The Troika is riding power democratically and does not seem [we would like to be contradicted] ready to get off. From their first meetings in the Constituent Assembly, the three heads of the triumvirate began to speak of at least one year and a half. The Constitutionalists will tell you, however, it will not take more than a few weeks to draft a new constitution and even organize a referendum if the bill on the organization of powers would not demolish the Independent Higher Authority for Elections as clearly stated in its intention. Hence, more millions of dinars would be thrown away in the training of personnel and for other reasons in the old structure of Kamel Jendoubi. If all this is not called denial of one’s word, it is very similar!
4 – Abuse of power to make profit: For the latter sin committed by the new holders of power in Tunisia, one could even parody this legislation, currently in vogue in the case shaking the old ruling team at the time of Ben Ali: abuse of power to make profit [political ones for our case] for oneself or for relatives [in the political sense, it also means].
With only 1.5 million votes out of 3.7 million voters, Ennahdha, which is demographically-speaking a minority, uses and abuses power within the Constitution to impose its vision of politics, the Tunisian version of democracy, society and the economy. All this is done for the benefit of an electoral and doctrinally religious minority.
