After President Kais Saied overthrew the government and froze parliamentary activities, Tunisia faced its biggest crisis in a decade of democracy on Monday (July 26). His enemies posted this move should be opposed on the streets Coup label.
In a statement later on Sunday, Said invoked the constitution to remove Prime Minister Hichem Mečić from office and ordered the freeze of Parliament for 30 days, stating that he will be in power with the new prime minister.
The move was made after a day of protests against the government and the moderate Islamic Baath Party, the largest party in the parliament, after a surge in COVID-19 cases and growing anger over chronic political dysfunction and economic malaise.
After Tunisia triggered the “Arab Spring” in 2011 and overthrew the autocratic system in support of the revolution in support of democratic rule, Tunisia posed its biggest challenge to date, but failed to achieve good governance or prosperity.
In the hours after Said announced the news, Tunisia and other cities gathered a large number of supporters, cheering, dancing and shouting while the army blocked the parliament and national television.
The head of Ennahda and Speaker Rached Ghannouchi, who has played a role in successive coalition governments, condemned these measures as coups and attacks on democracy.
In the early hours of Monday morning, Ganucci arrived in Parliament, where he said he would ignore Said’s meeting, but the army stationed outside the building prevented the 80-year-old former political exile from entering.
“I am opposed to concentrating all power in one person,” he said outside the parliament building. He earlier called on Tunisians to take to the streets, as they did on the day of the 2011 revolution, to oppose this move.
Subsequent television footage showed dozens of Baath Party supporters confronting Said supporters near the parliament building and insulting each other when the police separated them.
Said is a politically independent person who took office in 2019 after he campaigned to become the scourge of corrupt and incompetent elites. He refused to accept allegations that he had launched a coup.
He said that his actions were based on Article 80 of the Constitution and defined it as a response to the economic and political paralysis that has plagued Tunisia for many years.
However, the 2014 constitution required the establishment of a special court to decide such disputes between Tunisian state branches. After years of arguing about which judges should be included to allow for competing interpretations of the law, this court was never established.
‘WOr the situation’
The other two main parties in the parliament, Heart of Tunisia and Calama, joined the Baath Party in accusing Said of launching a coup. Former President Moncef Marzuki, who helped oversee the transition to democracy after the revolution, said that this may represent the beginning of “a worse situation.”
Said said in a statement announcing the dismissal of Megic and the freezing of the parliament that he has also suspended the legal immunity of parliamentarians and is taking over the office of the attorney general.
He warned against any armed reaction to his actions. “No matter who shoots, the armed forces will respond with bullets,” said Said, who has the support of many Tunisians, including Islamists and leftists.
Thousands of people supporting the president remained on the streets of Tunisia and other cities. Some set off fireworks and helicopters hovering over their heads hours after his announcement.
After Said issued a statement, Lamia Meftahi, a woman celebrating in the center of Tunisia, said of the parliament and the government: “We have removed them from office.” “This is the most since the revolution. Happy moments.”
Both the president and the parliament were elected by different general elections in 2019, and Prime Minister Hichem Mečić took office last summer, replacing another short-lived government.
At the same time, the parliament elected a shattered House, in which no party holds more than a quarter of the seats.
As the country is struggling to deal with the economic crisis, imminent fiscal austerity, and slow response to the pandemic, the president and Mechichi have been involved in a year of political disputes.
According to the constitution, the president is only directly responsible for diplomacy and the military, but after the government collapsed last week due to a walk-in vaccination center, he told the military to be responsible for the pandemic.
With the quarrel between the country’s political parties, Tunisia’s soaring infection and death rates have intensified public anger against the government.
At the same time, Mechichi is trying to negotiate a new loan with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is considered essential to avoid an imminent fiscal crisis, as Tunisia is working hard to provide for its budget deficit and upcoming debt repayment. funds.
The controversy over economic reforms is considered necessary to obtain loans, but it may harm ordinary Tunisians by ending subsidies or cutting jobs in the public sector, and has already brought the government to the brink of collapse.
