The powerful Tunisian trade union center UGTT refused on Monday May 23 to take part in the dialogue proposed by President Kais Saied with the aim of founding a "
new Republic
", after he took full power in July 2021.
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Kais Saied on Friday appointed a lawyer close to him at the head of a commission responsible for drafting a Constitution for "
a new Republic
" through a "
national dialogue
" from which political parties are excluded.
According to a presidential decree, this commission will present "
a draft Constitution
" to the president, after consultations with the unions the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT) and the Tunisian Union of Agriculture and Fisheries (UTAP), but also with the employers' organization UTICA, the NGOs Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH) and the National Union of Tunisian Women (UNFT).
But at the end of a meeting of its governing body on Monday under the chairmanship of its secretary general Noureddine Taboubi, the UGTT inflicted a snub on President Saied by announcing that it would boycott the proposed dialogue.
The UGTT "
will not participate in the national dialogue in the format proposed by President Kais Saied, which has not been the subject of prior consultations and does not meet the expectations of the national forces to set up a patriotic process allowing of the crisis
,” the union said in a statement.
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Influential actor on the political scene in Tunisia, the UGTT works with UTICA, LTDH and the National Order of Lawyers of the Quartet of winners in 2015 of the Nobel Peace Prize for its contribution to the democratic transition in Tunisia, cradle of the Arab Spring where democracy seems to be wavering since Kais Saied's coup in July.