Tunisia’s President Saied: “Monsieur Propre” removes power from parliament


portrait

Status: 08/10/2021 2:49 p.m.

Tunisia’s president is considered a “clean man” – a politician who wanted to put an end to corrupt conditions. Now Saied has sent Parliament on a 30-day break. A portrait of the 63-year-old lawyer.

Of Dunja Sadaqi ARD Studio North West Africa

Tunisia’s President Kais Saied wants to vaccinate his country out of the crisis. During a visit to a vaccination center, he said:

The vaccination will continue in the coming days until the entire Tunisian people are vaccinated. And we will continue vaccination against all pandemics and the second vaccination against political pandemics as well as political microbes.

“Political microbes” – by this the President means Tunisia’s government. He recently dismissed the head of government and ministers. He put parliament on a compulsory 30-day break and took over the affairs of government.

Shortly afterwards, this gave him cheers in the streets – demonstrators across the country had previously said “Dissolve Parliament!” called.

Vaccination campaign is apparently having an effect

Kais Saied presents itself as a savior in need. With a mass vaccination campaign with vaccine donations from abroad, he wants to contain the escalated corona crisis. By autumn, 50 percent of the population should be vaccinated.

The delta variant has led to one of the world’s highest Covid death rates in small Tunisia with over 20,000 deaths. The current vaccination campaign seems to ease the health crisis. His supporters credit the president, who is also supposed to bring the country out of a political impasse.

President Saied promises to have vaccinated 50 percent of the population by autumn.

Image: AFP

Sizzling mood

The parliament, which is split up into many factions, is blocked in its work. Important reforms do not materialize, not even during the pandemic, which is why many Tunisians blame the now deposed government for the poor health situation and the worsening economic crisis. Since the beginning of the year, Tunisia has increasingly become a boiling pressure cooker.

Then President Kais Saied intervened. He had already had a dispute with the government led by the Islamic conservative Ennahda party in the past. The step of Kais Saied is not surprising, says the Tunisian journalist Monia Ben Hamadi. She is the editor-in-chief of “Inkyfada”, a Tunisian web magazine.

July 25, the “day of the seizure of power”, must be seen in the light of the political crisis, says Hamadi and describes the situation in retrospect:

Demonstrations at the beginning of the year, which were mostly suppressed by the police and where the regime did not respond to people’s expectations at all, but also put down all forms of protest. At the head of those responsible is the Ennahda party and its coalition partners, which have made up the majority of the government since the 2011 elections.

All of this explains the intervention of Kais Saied and the great approval he received.

President invokes the constitution

The President Kais Saied sees himself with his steps in conformity with the constitution, as he is based on an article of the constitution that allows the President to intervene under certain circumstances:

I did not suspend the Constitution or leave its legal framework. We operate within the framework of the law, but when the law is used to resolve personal conflicts or to steal from the state or the impoverished population, it is not a matter of laws that reflect the will of the people, but rather of the will of the people . We take responsibility here before God, before the people, before history.

However, this is hotly debated among experts in the country.

Celebrated by the young voters

“Propre”, a “clean man” – this is how many described the president when he ran for the elections in autumn 2019. Kais Saied was not one of the political elite, an inconspicuous man whom some described in his speech and gestures as a robot.

The retired law lecturer and well-known constitutional lawyer led the election campaign modestly without large election posters with his likeness. On election night, young people in particular celebrated their 60-year-old president in the streets of the capital.

This mood is still reflected in the streets of Tunis. “I have faith in him, he could never be a dictator,” says Khadem from Tunis. We want to have a leader. “But people are also on their guard and will never let anyone seize power who deprives them of their fundamental rights, he says.

The President is a man of integrity who wants what is best for Tunisia. It is a man of justice and he tries to respond to what the Tunisian people want.

He’s not afraid of democracy.

Cynicism and skepticism in the population

How much worse could it get? Many Tunisians ask cynically. Perhaps that is also why, according to surveys, over 80 percent of those questioned still support the decisions of their president.

In Tunisia, the parliament’s 30-day break is halftime. People are still waiting for the president to find a new one Appoints head of government and Tunisia returns to normal conditions. In the country, however, many are divided as to whether this will improve their living situation.

President Kais Said – the clean man who disempowered the parliament in Tunisia

Dunja Sadaqi, ARD Rabat, August 10, 2021 1:37 p.m.



Source link