Tunisian President Kais Said made it clear this Wednesday through a statement from his presidential office that he would assume new powers.
Hours later, the country's official gazette announced that the president will govern by decree from now on.
The Parliament of the only country where the Arab Spring triumphed has not been able to say anything because it was suspended for a month by Said himself.
Later, he extended the suspension indefinitely.
Day by day, this 63-year-old jurist, who came to power in 2019 with no previous political experience, is dismantling the constitutional scaffolding of the Maghreb country.
More information
Deprivation of liberty by order of the Government
The leader of the majority party in Parliament, Rached Ghannouchi, of the moderate Islamist formation Ennahda, indicated that Said's measures mean the cancellation of the Constitution and that his party would not accept that, according to Reuters.
The text in which the new powers of the president are collected is a decree of 23 articles. Article number 5 includes some thirty sections that can be legislated by means of a presidential decree law. There are very sensitive issues in any democracy, such as the "organization of justice and the magistracy", "the organization of information, the press and publishing", "the organization of political parties, unions, associations ... , "The organization of the Army", "of the internal security forces and customs",
Article 21 of the decree states that "the provisional instance of control of the constitutionality of bills is abolished." And in number 22, he declares that the president is going to prepare revision projects related to political reforms and will be assisted by a commission whose organization will be established by “presidential decree”. And all that accumulation of articles that in reality only grant more powers to Kais Said, are aimed at "a true democratic regime in which the people are the holder of sovereignty." In other words, all authoritarian measures are taken in the name of true democracy.
“Actually,” explains a European analyst who requests anonymity, “Kais Said was already ruling by decree.
He decreed in July the suspension of powers of Parliament, the cessation of several ministers.
Later, it decreed the
sine die
extension
of the emergency measures… ”.
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