TUNIS, July 25 (Reuters) – Tunisia’s president dismissed the government and froze parliament on Sunday in a dramatic escalation of a political crisis, prompting huge crowds to fill the capital in his support, but his opponents labelled the moves a coup.
President Kais Saied said he would assume executive authority with the assistance of a new prime minister, in the biggest challenge yet to a 2014 democratic constitution that split powers between president, prime minister and parliament.
Tunisians rose up in revolution in 2011 against decades of autocracy in the first eruption of the Arab Spring, installing a democratic system that ensured new freedoms and has navigated repeated crises, but which has not delivered economic prosperity.
Years of paralysis, corruption, declining state services and growing unemployment had already soured many Tunisians on their political system before the global pandemic hammered the economy last year and COVID-19 infection rates shot up this summer.
Major protests, called by social media activists but not backed by any of the big political parties, took place on Sunday with much of the anger focused on the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, the biggest in parliament.
Ennahda, banned before the revolution, has been the most consistently successful party since 2011 and a member of successive coalition governments.
“Many people were deceived by hypocrisy, treachery and robbery of the rights of the people,” Saied said in a statement carried on state media.
“I warn any who think of resorting to weapons… and whoever shoots a bullet, the armed forces will respond with bullets,” he added.
Soon after the statement, people flooded the streets of Tunis in defiance of a COVID-19 curfew, as supporters of Saied honked car horns and cheered the news.
“We have been relieved of them,” said Lamia Meftahi, a woman celebrating in central Tunis, speaking of the parliament and government.
“This is the happiest moment since the revolution,” she added.
‘DEFEND THE REVOLUTION’
The president has been enmeshed in political disputes with Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi for over a year, as the country grapples with an economic crisis, a looming fiscal crunch and a flailing response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi, head of the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, the biggest in parliament, accused Saied of launching “a coup against the revolution and constitution” in a phone call to Reuters.
“We consider the institutions still standing, and the supporters of the Ennahda and the Tunisian people will defend the revolution,” he added, raising the prospect of confrontations between supporters of Ennahda and Saied.
In his statement, Saied said his actions were in line with Article 80 of the constitution, and also cited the article to suspend the immunity of members of parliament.
Saied and the parliament were both elected in separate popular votes in 2019, while Mechichi took office last summer, replacing another short-lived government.
Disputes over Tunisia’s constitution were intended to be settled by a constitutional court. However, seven years after the constitution was approved, the court has yet to be installed after disputes over the appointment of judges.
Reporting by Tarek Amara and Ahmed Tolba; Writing by Angus McDowall; editing by Jonathan Oatis
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