Tunisian President Kais Saied has announced the establishment of a “national dialogue” which has been awaited for months but from which all the political parties he deems responsible for the politico-economic crisis shaking the country will be excluded.
In a speech delivered Sunday evening for the Muslim holiday of Eid marking the end of Ramadan, Mr. Saied indicated that a commission would “manage the national dialogue”, a measure called for many times by the G7 countries and the European Union since assuming full powers on July 25, 2021.
Four organizations will participate the trade union center UGTT, the employers’ organization UTICA, the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH), and the National Bar Association.
This is the Quartet that received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015 for its contribution to the democratic transition in Tunisia, the cradle of the Arab Spring, and considered at the time to be the only democracy in the Arab world.
Since the summer of 2021, President Saied, democratically elected at the end of 2019, has monopolized all powers and has ruled the country by decree. At the end of March, he dissolved Parliament, which had been dominated for 10 years by coalitions led by the Islamist-inspired party Ennahdha, his pet peeve.
In recent weeks, he has also changed the composition of the Superior Council of the Judiciary which governs the judicial system, and that of the high electoral authority Isie.
On Sunday, the leader of the powerful UGTT, Noureddine Taboubi, made an insistent appeal to Mr. Saied to launch the national dialogue. It is “probably the last chance to bring together national forces” and avoid “a dismantling of the state and a financial and economic collapse” of the country, argued Mr. Taboubi.
In his speech, the president excluded any participation in this dialogue of “those who sabotaged, starved and mistreated the people”, implying the parties which, like Ennahdha, denounced “a coup d’etat” by Mr. Saied.
In a roadmap supposed to get the country out of the political crisis, Mr. Saied has scheduled a referendum on constitutional amendments on July 25, before legislative elections on December 17. According to Mr. Saied, the committee of experts in charge of preparing a Constitution for “a new Republic” will soon complete its work.
In addition to the political stalemate, Tunisia is experiencing a serious socio-economic crisis and is in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the hope of obtaining a new loan.
