Hundreds of Tunisians demonstrated in Tunis on Saturday to demand the departure of President Kais Saied, a week before the planned election of a Parliament without real powers, a new stage in the establishment of a hyper-presidentialist system.
The demonstration, at the call of the National Salvation Front, a coalition of opposition parties, took place in the context of a serious economic crisis, marked in recent months by recurring shortages of basic foodstuffs (flour, sugar, coffee. .) and high inflation.
Protesters marched through central Tunis, holding placards reading “Clear” Where “the oppressed citizen is poorer and hungrier“, According to AFP correspondents on the spot. “Freedoms, freedoms, the police state is over“, they chanted to denounce what the opposition and NGOs describe as an authoritarian drift since Kaïs Saïed seized full power in July 2021.
A debt greater than 100% of its GDP
The difficulties of Tunisia, strangled by a debt exceeding 100% of its GDP and in economic decline for 10 years, have been amplified by the Covid-19 crisis and the war in Ukraine which increases the import costs of cereals and hydrocarbons of which it is very dependent.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced in October that it had reached an agreement with Tunisia allowing the release of a loan of 1.9 billion dollars, in return for a program of reforms that the Tunisian government must implement. .
After months of political blockage, Kaïs Saïed assumed full powers on July 25, 2021 by suspending Parliament and dismissing the government.
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A year later, he had a new Constitution adopted in a referendum marked by very strong abstention, which grants him vast prerogatives at the risk of jeopardizing the young Tunisian democracy resulting from the first revolt of the Arab Spring in 2011.
This new charter provides for the establishment of a Parliament with very limited prerogatives which will be elected on December 17 in a vote boycotted by the opposition.