Between a statist presidency and a liberal Parliament, the definition of priorities is likely to be a challenge. There is
is urgent, however, because the public debt is becoming dangerously heavy.
Liberalism in Bardo, statism in Carthage and, probably, a mixture of the two in the Kasbah: the Parliament,
the presidency of the Republic and the government will have to simmer a dignified economic cohabitation
a chakchouka (ratatouille with Tunisian sauce). The Islamo-conservative Ennahdha party, which has the
more deputies to the Assembly of People's Representatives (ARP), displays a resolutely liberal program
focused on business competitiveness, the arrival of foreign investors and the opening of the code of
changes. The Head of State, Kaïs Saïed, has never really specified his economic programme, but the
pedigree of his close adviser, Ridha el-Mekki, alias "Ridha Lenin", from the pan-Arab left, in
suggests a statist vision. The government – still in formation – should include, in addition to these two
tendencies, partisans of a Keynesian vision.
All these actors are going to have to find a way to get along. Parliament has until 10 December to
pass the finance law. The new deputies, to establish their legitimacy, could challenge this project
prepared by the government of Youssef Chahed and largely rejected by voters. which would plunge the
country still a little more uncertain.
But uncertainty is precisely what worries international donors, who hold the
Tunisia's solvency at arm's length. The IMF, one of the country's main creditors, deplored in July the
“slow implementation of reforms due to continued political uncertainty, social tensions and
opposition to reforms emanating from vested interests".
Since the establishment of the Extended Fund Facility (2016-2020) of $2.8 billion, the IMF has been pushing
the reduction of expenditure, in particular through the reduction in the number of civil servants and the
abolition of subsidies (petrol, bread, oil, etc.). The next finance law is no exception to this
line: it plans in particular to reduce the budget deficit to 3% of GDP (compared to 6.1% in 2017). " Those
last years, each finance law poses a problem for me, because it is written in a logic
purely accounting which aims to satisfy donors. But it's not by increasing the pressure
tax and reducing public expenditure that the structural problem will be solved. We have to break this
scheme and focus on production, which is the basis of the real economy", analyzes Mouez Soussi,
professor of economics at the Institute of Higher Commercial Studies (IHEC) in Carthage. the
"scheme" could indeed quickly be shattered. Until now, governments have played
budget reduction (replacement of one out of four civil servants retiring, reduction in subsidies,
etc.), while increasing the public debt through internal and external borrowing (26 billion euros in
2019). A policy that has become untenable. With the shortage of liquidity born in 2017, banks no longer have the
reserves to buy equivalent treasury bonds (BTA) with all your might.
Internationally, investors view Tunisian debt with caution. Of course, the country is
removed, in October, from the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental body for
fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism. But the rating agencies Fitch and
Moody's is counting on a "negative outlook", because of the high debt and the fall of the dinar:
– 62.7% since October 2010 against the euro. At the Tunisian-British Forum on Trade and
investment held at the end of October, the Governor of the Central Bank of Tunisia, Marouane
el-Abassi, has also described the country as a "site of long-term investment". In this context, the arrival at
Maturity of the IMF loan in 2020 announces a delicate pass. Indeed, donors will look to
twice before offering their aid to a country which would no longer benefit from the guarantee of the financial institution and which would be reluctant to continue to make drastic budget cuts if the forces
economically anti-liberal came to gain importance within the future majority.
The first clue will soon be revealed. During his rare forays into the economic domain, the
President Kaïs Saïed spoke of strengthening ties with the Maghreb. While the trade
intra-Maghreb represents less than 3% of trade in the region, will it be the promoter of a market
regional more integrated? Will he decide, as responsible for the conduct of foreign policy, to
favor development towards the south of the Sahara within the framework of the Continental Free Trade Area
Africa (Zleca) rather than signing the Comprehensive and Deep Free Trade Agreement (Aleca) with Europe,
stalled in recent months? After eight years of post-revolutionary dithering, Tunisia has
now five years to acquire a real economic vision.