The post of prime minister is still vacant, and MPs critical of the president have been arrested. A week after Kais Saied took power in Tunisia, fears of an authoritarian drift prompted some observers to express their concern on Sunday.
Mr. Saied granted himself full powers on July 25 and suspended parliament, saying he wanted to “save” the small Maghreb country, which has been plagued by months of political deadlocks and a new deadly spike in Covid-19 – Tunisia has one of the world’s worst official death rates.
In establishing this exceptional regime, denounced by his opponents in the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party as a “coup d’état”, Mr. Saied also lifted the parliamentary immunity of deputies.
In this context, several arrests have caused controversy in the last three days. Two deputies of the Islamo-nationalist movement Al-Karama, an ultraconservative party allied to Ennahdha, were arrested.
According to the lawyer, who is very hostile to President Saied, he and the two deputies are being prosecuted in a case related to an altercation that occurred in March at the airport in Tunis. They are suspected of having insulted border police officers who had forbidden a woman to travel.
On Friday, an independent MP, Yassine Ayari, who also denounced a “military coup,” was arrested under a two-month prison sentence handed down in late 2018 for criticizing the military, according to Tunisian military justice. His incarceration has raised concerns from NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
