Image: Yassine Gaidi

Faizel Patel – 28/07/2021

Radio host, journalist and an environmental activist Rabeb Aloui says Tunisian President Kais Saied’s decision to fire the defence minister is in line with Chapter Eighty of the constitution and legal

Saied sacked Ibrahim Bartaji, a day after ousting the prime minister and suspending parliament, plunging the young democracy into constitutional crisis in the midst of a pandemic.

Street clashes erupted outside the army-barricaded parliament, after Saied dismissed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and ordered parliament closed for 30 days, a move the biggest political party Ennahdha decried as a “coup”.

Mechichi says he would hand power to the man chosen by the president, in his first comments since the shock move.

Saied declared on Sunday he had “taken the necessary decisions to save Tunisia, the state and the Tunisian people,” following street protests in multiple cities against the government’s handling of the Covid pandemic in the North African country.

Speaking to Radio Islam, Aloui says Saied’s actions cannot be termed as a coup.

“We can’t describe it as a coup but at the same time we can describe it as political change. The street is divided between people who supported Kais Saied’s decisions and on the other hand people who are against this decision who called this decision as a beginning of a dictatorship.”

Aloui says country is waiting for Saied to address the nation.

“We don’t know what will happen, we are still waiting for a speech of the president of the republic, whether he will announced extraordinary measures, whether he will appoint a new minister or will he call for early elections, nothing is clear.”

Aloui says it is not surprising that Tunisia is undergoing a political crisis as adding that the relationship between the president, the chief of government and president of the parliament was showing signs of strain.

(Twitter: @FaizelPatel143)

Listen to the interview with Rabeb Aloui