Tunisia’s President Kais Saied on Sunday announced that he was freezing the Tunisian parliament, suspending the immunity of all deputies and dismissing Prime Minister Hicham Mechichi, after violent protests rocked several Tunisian cities, according to Reuters.
Saied added that he would assume the presidency of the executive authority with the assistance of a new prime minister.
Earlier on Sunday, hundreds of protesters had rallied in the Tunisian capital and other cities, demanding that the government step down after a spike in Covid-19 cases that has aggravated economic troubles.
In Tunis, police used pepper spray against protesters who threw stones and shouted slogans demanding that Mechichi quit and parliament be dissolved.
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Witnesses said rallies numbering several hundred also gathered in the cities of Gafsa, Sidi Bouzid, Monastir and Nabeul. Demonstrators in Sousse tried to storm the local headquarters of the biggest party in parliament, the moderate Islamist Ennahda. In Tozeur, protesters set fire to the Ennahda headquarters.
The pandemic has hit Tunisia as it struggles to lift an economy that has suffered since its 2011 revolution, undermining public support for democracy as unemployment surged and state services declined.
“Our patience has run out… there are no solutions for the unemployed,” said Nourredine Selmi, 28, a jobless protester. “They cannot control the epidemic… They can’t give us vaccines.”
Last week, Mechichi had sacked the health minister after chaotic scenes at walk-in vaccination centres during the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, where large crowds queued for inadequate supplies of vaccine.
After a year of wrangling with Mechichi and the leader of Ennahda, Rached Ghannouchi, who is also parliament speaker, Saied declared the army would take over the pandemic response.
Some analysts saw the move as an attempt to expand his powers beyond the foreign and military role assigned to the president in the 2014 constitution.
Government paralysis could derail efforts to negotiate an International Monetary Fund loan seen as crucial to stabilising state finances but which could also involve spending cuts that would aggravate economic pain for ordinary people.
Content retrieved from: https://t.co/XMjVIA2qpZ?amp=1.
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