The Deputy Secretary-General in charge of the media within the Tunisian General Labor Union, Sami Tahri, declared that “the period of silence and waiting has lasted too long”.
The Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT / central union) on Tuesday accused “all parties”, including the country’s president, Kaïs Saïed, of having avoided the dialogue, reiterating its call for the development of a sheet. road capable of resolving the current crisis.
Tunisia has been in the throes of an acute political crisis since July 25. On that date, President Kaïs Saïed had taken a series of exceptional measures, notably suspending the work of Parliament and lifting the immunity enjoyed by deputies.
He had also abrogated the Body for the Control of the Constitutionality of Laws and decided to legislate by presidential decrees, just as he dismissed from his post the head of government, Hichem Mechichi, thus taking the head of the executive, assisted by a government whose head he appointed in the person of the academic Najla Bouden.
The deputy secretary-general in charge of the media within the UGTT, Sami Tahri, told the Arabic-language newspaper “Assahafa” (official) that “the time has come to draw up a clear roadmap, to put it through a greater. political action and start implementing its provisions”.
“The period of silence and waiting has lasted too long, and no political field in the world can tolerate such a vacuum,” said the union official.
The majority of Tunisian political forces reject Saïed’s decisions, which it considers to be “a coup against the Constitution”, while other parties support them, believing that it is a “restoration of the Revolution process ”of 2011, which had deposed the regime of the former president, Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.
The UGTT supports the exceptional measures of July 25 and considers them as the natural consequence of the failure of a whole decade marked by the betrayal of the objectives of the revolution and indifference to the aspirations of the people. However, the trade union center has repeatedly called for an inclusive national dialogue and the development of a roadmap.
And Tahri added, “The UGTT, which has drawn up a roadmap and made it available to everyone, is still keen to ensure that this sheet is clear, achievable, according to a pre-established schedule and with clearly set objectives, especially as the country will engage in far-reaching reforms”.
“A new action plan can be drawn up (…) based on a minimum national consensus, the sharing of responsibilities instead of the sharing of power, as well as on participatory governance and not the sharing of the spoils”, an esteemed Tahri.
The deputy secretary-general in charge of the media within the UGTT underlined that “the main trade union of the country remains attached to the dialogue, as being the only way out of the current crisis which prevails in the country, and the contacts made with the president of the Republic fall within this framework”.
And Tahri added, “the fact that all parties have withdrawn from the dialogue, including the Head of State, in recent months, has contributed to the political setbacks in the country that we are seeing today”.
Several political parties and unions, including the UGTT, have called for a national dialogue, but Saïed rejects what he calls a “dialogue in a classic form” and wishes to bring about a dialogue with all categories of the Tunisian population, especially young people, through electronic platforms, which has led to him being accused of working to exclude parties.
Kaïs Saïed had repeatedly tried to reassure Tunisian public opinion and foreign chancelleries, by affirming that he did not intend to establish an autocratic regime in Tunisia or to undermine rights and freedoms, but aims to remedy the situation through reforms, after having invoked the existence of an “imminent peril” which threatens the Tunisian state.
