Tunisian President dissolves Parliament eight months after suspending it

The President of Tunisia, Kais SaidHe decided dissolve this wednesday the Parliament from the country. The hemicycle had already been suspended by his order since July. The president made this decision after some 116 deputies opposed to the president (out of a total of 217) met by videoconference, defying suspensionto approve a bill that sought to annul all the presidential decrees Said had promoted in recent months.

The North African country lives immersed in a political blockade and democratic uncertainty since the summer. This measure was announced at the National Security Council. The Tunisian president described the meeting of these parliamentarians as an “attempt to blow failed” and “plot against the internal and external security of the State” in a television appearance late on Wednesday. In addition, he added that this plenary session had no legitimacy.

The Ministry of Justice also announced that it has opened a investigation against deputies and accuses them of “conspiring against the security of the State”. The UGTT union, one of the strongest in the country, rejected this meeting and accused the parliamentarians of “leading the country to conflict and political division,” according to EFE.

Since the summer, the Tunisian president has been accumulating more and more power. At the end of July, Said declared a state of emergency; the dismissal of the Prime Minister, Hichem Mechichi, and the suspension of Parliament. In recent months, it has also dissolved the Superior Council of the Judiciary, the highest judicial body in the country.

A set of measures that have blocked the role of the parties and the different state agencies. The opposition has repeatedly called Said carrying out a “coup.”

The president himself has opened a Constitutional reform, that is going to be voted on in the summer, with the aim of leaving behind the text approved after the Arab springs of 2011. Said has defended that he wants to “rectify” the current organization of the state. What’s more, elections were called for next December.

Said, 64, appeared on the Tunisian political board in 2019 after winning the presidential election with more than 70% of the vote. Originally from the capital of Tunisia and a professor of constitutional law, he ran for the elections without a political party and with the fight against corruption as one of his commitments. He has also been very critical of the political formations that he has accused of “betraying” the 2011 revolution that put an end to the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.