The recent emergence of a front calling for a popular referendum to change the political system in Tunisia is considered an explicit call to bypass constitutional procedures in the absence of the Constitutional Court.
The issue of the referendum and its role in democracy is not an easy matter, as it represents a problem which is as old as democracy itself.
Researcher Ayman Boughanmi wrote in a recent article in Al-Maghrib newspaper that “the referendum may actually suggest that it is a democratic exercise by virtue of the fact that it gives the decision to the majority.” But then he asks, “Have we not agreed since 2012 that democracy is not the rule of the majority? Weren’t some of those calling for a referendum on our side when we reminded that majority rule is a form of dictatorship, described by the father of the American Constitution James Madison as the tyranny of the majority?”
Since democracy actually means relative rule of the majority within the framework of democratic constitutional guarantees, the author of the article asks about the guarantees that can remain if the ruler is able at any time to invoke the will of the people through a referendum to break it.
“Didn’t Ben Ali do that when he changed the constitution in order to stay in power? Doesn’t those who propose today to resort to a referendum from outside constitutional procedures commit the same crime? Do those who demand the referendum need to be reminded that the history of this practice is riddled with flaws?”
Among some of the examples provided by Boughanmi is that some Swiss cantons delayed, until the eighties of the last century, granting the right to vote to women because of the referendum, and that the last referendum in this regard took place in 1989, at which time the voters refused to grant the right to vote to women, which forced the Federal Supreme Court to intervene to nullify this result. Also, a large part of the racist legislation in the United States of America, before the end of racial discrimination in the sixties, had been imposed by referendum, and it was difficult to overcome because of the referendum itself.
The main issue in this context is about the nature of the political system, meaning that the matter is not related to rights and freedoms, and here the writer asks again, “If we accept today to deviate from the current constitutional guarantees in order to change the system of government, in the absence of the Constitutional Court, for example, why do we not accept And if we adopt a presidential system, with democratic guarantees, as they claim, who can guarantee that a future president will not resort to a referendum to reduce those guarantees?” Therefore, the referendum is a weapon sufficient to eliminate democracy itself, if it falls for once in the hands of an irresponsible or undemocratic leadership.
The subject of the proposed referendum is, without a doubt, asking the people to choose between the presidential system and the parliamentary system.
However, one of the most important conditions for a democratic referendum, after fulfilling its procedural conditions of course, is the clarity of the question, the accuracy of its subject and the clarity of its consequences. These conditions are non-existent in the situation.
“What is the meaning of the proposed presidential system? Does it mean Tunisia’s adoption of a system on the American way, for example, or on the French method? Do we need to recall that classifying political systems is essentially an academic practice, and that the boundary between parliamentary and presidential systems is a theoretical issue that cannot be resolved legally?”
In addition to the lack of accuracy in the matter, and even if there are boundaries between the presidential system and the parliamentary system, defining what the people want from their choice seems impossible. For example, if the people choose a presidential system, as desired by the referendum called for by a section of Tunisian politicians, “How many powers must be assigned to the president in order for the people’s will to be realized? Then what are the guarantees that the referendum advocates promise us to avoid deviations to presidentialism? And what will happen, for example, to the position of prime minister? Will it disappear in the American way? Or will the president only have the right of choice and/or the power to impeach him? Or will these powers be shared between the President and Parliament?
It seems that the desire to change the political system stems from two things. The first is the ambition of some politicians to reach the presidency. The second is the rejection of the democratic principle based on the balance of powers and their mutual control. If the ambition to reach the presidency is legitimate for all politicians, then rejecting the balance of power in a system that allows direct election of the president is a betrayal of democracy.
It must be acknowledged that the disruption of the functioning of the state today is that some politicians at the top of the pyramid of power do not like power-sharing and cooperative and interactive joint work, and there are also those who understand democracy as a path of choice that ends with the end of the election and not as an endless course of action and a quest for the advancement of nations.
The constraints of the balance between powers protect democracy, especially when it is emerging, so that it does not deviate into tyranny. It also pushes politicians to work on persuading partners and opponents to establish the value of deliberation on governance and integration.
