In a laconic press release published on May 21, the Ministry of Defense recalled that the army remains neutral and denounced attempts to involve it in political tensions. A rare communication which arouses contradictory speculation and poses a crucial question: to what extent will the army be loyal to political power when the crisis weakens the state and could destabilize the regime?
On Selim Jaziri
In an extremely rare gesture, the Tunisian Ministry of Defense published a press release Thursday evening to recall that the Tunisian army remained attached to its “neutrality” and its “independence” as well as to denounce “the multiplication of attempts aimed at dragging the military institution and its officials into controversies and outbidding”. No one is designated, the language is cryptic, sparing with words probably carefully calibrated. The implications are heavy, but not necessarily easy to decipher and the choice to evoke these “attempts” at a time when the systemic crisis is becoming more and more dangerous, fuels speculation.
A preventive message
While since July 25, 2021, the legitimacy of Kaïs Saïed’s regime has been contested, the political role of the army has been the subject of contradictory interpretations. In Tunis, everyone has their version: some assure that the institution keeps its distance from power, others that it actively supports it, still others that it helps to regulate it behind the scenes. Some fear it, others long for it.
The army is often invoked as a recourse in the face of the drift of power, its impotence in the face of the multidimensional crisis the country is going through and its repressive headlong flight. The institution would be “the adult in the room” who is counted on to manage the most fanciful excesses of a president locked in a messianic vision of his role and a conspiratorial perception of reality. Opponents in exile explicitly include the army, alongside partner states and democratic parties, in the implementation of an alternative to Kaïs Saïed. This involvement of the army in a change of regime in the name of higher interests of the Nation is one of the recurring elements of the conversation in opposition circles, including in their contacts with foreign diplomats. This is how in a video shared on May 17, the former President of the Republic Moncef Marzouki, now in exile in France, called. the army, as well as the presidential guard and the forces under the Ministry of the Interior, to neutralize the “putschist” Kaïs Saïed.
Multiple and contradictory interpretations
According to the pro-Saïed media, like the declarations of Riadh Jrad, the President’s official propagandist, the press release from the Ministry of Defense is a direct response to these appeals, or even precisely to the words of Moncef Marzouki. It’s plausible: but in this case, who is it addressed to? To the opponents who would like to involve the military in their political adventure? This is the most obvious meaning of the wording of the text. Or is it a warning addressed to certain officers tempted to play their game? This interpretation, which, however, forces the letter of the text, would suggest possible dissensions within the institution.
Some opponents want to see, on the contrary, in the press release, a message addressed to Kaïs Saïed to tell him that the army is not at his service. An unbelievable reading: it is hard to imagine the Ministry of Defense, the sender of the message, challenging the head of state who exercises his direct authority over Minister Khalil Sehili, a former diplomat who does not come from the ranks of the army.
While the effects of the global energy crisis triggered by Israeli-American aggression in Iran have brought Tunisian financial imbalances closer to their breaking point, opening a period of political fragility, the army, through the voice of the Ministry of Defense would therefore point out that it cannot be a party to any political equation. Not mentioning the head of state would be a way of indicating that his loyalty is not attached to a particular person.
Multiple recipients
According to former admiral Kamel Akrout, hardly suspected of sympathy for Kaïs Saïed, this intervention is rather “a proactive measure” to indicate that in a moment of crisis, the army would not side with one party or another. It would thus be addressed simultaneously to political actors – “the army is not an element of your partisan equation”; to the military – “stick to body discipline and do not allow yourself to be influenced by external elements”. » ; and to Tunisians in general – “the army is a pillar of your security in an anxiety-provoking environment”.
For Kamel Jendoubi, a human rights activist now in exile in France, this message reflects a growing concern within the institution: “How can we continue to support power without being dragged into its possible historical discredit?»
Ambivalent participation in power
How neutral is the army? One thing is certain: without his approval and his active contribution, Kaïs Saïed would not have been able to seize full powers on July 25, 2021. The image of the armored vehicle positioned in front of the Assembly of Representatives of the People and the military prohibiting the President from the Assembly Rached Ghannouchi to cross the gates, on the night of July 25 to 26, will remain as the symbol of the most significant transgression of the dogma of the political neutrality of the army since its participation in the “medical coup d’état” which deposed Habib Bourguiba on November 7 1987.
As minimal as the operational system was with regard to the opponents of Kaïs Saïed, this participation will remain as an indelible stain. Because obedience to orders does not erase the fact that in this case, the order was unconstitutional, since article 80 of the Constitution invoked by Kaïs Saïed to establish the state of exception, clearly stipulated that Parliament must sit in permanent session. In the spirit of the moment, however, it was a question of halting a spiral of crisis from which the political parties seemed incapable of extricating the country, rather than of putting an end to a democratic process far from being triumphant.
“When this is all over, we hear in the ranks of the oppositionthe army will have a lot to be forgiven forHAS”. Civilian opponents (former Islamist deputies from the Al Karama coalition) involved in an altercation with the police at the airport were brought before military justice. (It should nevertheless be remembered that the 2014-2019 legislature did not repeal the procedure which allows military justice to judge civilians, as required by the 2014 Constitution). It was also on the basis of military intelligence that French researcher Victor Dupont was arrested in the fall of 2024.
However, in the other direction, it was also following an investigation by military intelligence services into a corruption case – which would have enabled the escape of a drug lord – that Makram Jelassi, the advisor to the Minister of Justice, was arrested on July 10, 2024 within the same ministry. During the 2024 presidential election, it was with the assurance of the protection of the military that the administrative judges were able to meet in plenary session to demand – in vain – of the electoral body that it reinstate the candidates it had excluded, in order to maintain a minimum credibility in the ballot.
A traditional distance from the exercise of power
By tradition, the Tunisian military does not have any economic interests of its own to protect which would encourage them to exercise power more or less directly, unlike their Algerian or Egyptian counterparts. The army’s missions were limited to protecting the borders in a regional environment that remained relatively stable for a long time. Habib Bourguiba like Ben Ali ensured that she remained a weak actor to avoid the temptation of a coup d’état. The elimination of the instigators, former resistance fighters and soldiers, of the plot against Bourguiba in December 1962, or of the imaginary plot of Baraket Essahel, allegedly hatched by 244 soldiers reputed to be Islamists against Ben Ali in 1991, reminds us, if necessary, of the price to pay for adventurism politics.
Certainly, the army did its part in repressing the uprisings of 1978, 1984 and even 2008 in the mining basin. But it acted as an institution subordinate to the state, not as an active force in the defense of the regime. In 2011, contrary to legend, she did not “say no” to Ben Ali. Even in the second row, she remained loyal until the end. The Chief of Staff of the Army, General Rachid Ammar, simply avoided creating confusion on the ground between the military and the forces of the Ministry of the Interior to preserve his role as protector of the state and not of power. Once the revolution was complete, the army took on without difficulty the role of supporting the people which allowed it to maintain its position in a new context.
It strengthened its credibility by supporting the democratic transition process without ever intervening in partisan struggles or interfering in civil affairs. In 2019, Defense Minister Abdelkrim Zbidi applied to succeed Beji Caïd Essebsi by extensively using the image of the army during his campaign. But the institution itself was careful not to promote him as its candidate. With only 10% of the votes, he failed to qualify for the second round.
If former soldiers sit or have sat in the government since July 25 – Mustapha Ferjani at Health since August 2024 and Abdelmonem Belaâti at Agriculture from January 2023 to August 2024 – this exhibition is rather bad seen by the hierarchy and is not a sign of a desire for involvement. On the contrary, if Kaïs Saïed himself probably sought to rely on executives from the army to manage the state, it is the institution which did not wish to take this path. Although interested in the management of state affairs, the army is located in another dimension and another temporality than that of political actors: it thinks like a lasting institution, engaged in operational processes and linked to interests long-term strategic strategies. In this dimension, its links with the American army are much more determining than the political vagaries of circumstance.
America’s “Children”
Since the 1960s, the Tunisian army has developed organic ties with the United States. Its equipment is American, most of the officers have followed training in American military academies, which are also generously paid, and thus forged personal links with their American counterparts. This alliance has been consolidated since 2011, and especially since 2015.
The destabilization of the region and the emergence of jihadist movements at the borders and on the territory have encouraged the United States to strengthen the integration of the Tunisian army into their regional security system. Tunisia was designated as a strategic partner of NATO in 2015. Financial aid was tripled to increase and modernize its resources. Its numbers increased from 30 to 90,000 men in ten years. The Tunisian army is participating in military exercises led by the United States in the Mediterranean and Africa.
When, after July 25, members of Congress demanded that American aid to Tunisia, and in particular to the army, be suspended to sanction the coup and press for a “return to democracy”, the Pentagon curbed their ardor and recalled that the Tunisian soldiers are “their children” and that there was no question of weakening the Tunisian position. Even if since 2022, military aid has been reduced from 60 to 20 million dollars – against a backdrop of a drastic drop in American aid to almost all countries – material support for the Tunisian army is maintained through other channels. Despite Kaïs Saïed’s desire to free himself from Western tutelage, this strategic alliance has been maintained and there is no indication that there are plans to call it into question. Whatever the generals think of him, their priority remains fundamentally the protection of the institution and the overall security of the state
