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Saied also extended the suspension of MPs’ immunity a month after sacking the country’s prime minister.
Tunisian President Kais Saied has extended the suspension of parliament until further notice, the presidency said, after last month sacking its prime minister and seizing executive power in a move called a coup by opponents.
Saied also extended the suspension of MPs’ immunity on Monday, the presidency said, adding that Saied will deliver a speech to the nation in the coming days, without giving further details.
A month after Saied’s sudden intervention, he has yet to have a new prime minister or announce a roadmap demanded by Western allies and key players in Tunisia, including the powerful UGTT Union.
Saied said his intervention was necessary to save the country from collapse.
He appears to have broad popular support in Tunisia, where years of poor governance, corruption and political paralysis have been compounded by a deadly increase in COVID-19 cases.
But the president’s moves have raised concerns among some Tunisians about the future of the democratic system the country adopted after its 2011 revolution that triggered the Arab Spring.
Authorities have since placed several officials, including former ministers, under house arrest and have barred politicians and businessmen from traveling.
Saied was elected in a landslide in 2019 promising to stand up against corruption.
Ennahdha political reshuffle
In another development in Tunisia, Ennahdha party leader Rached Ghannouchi sacked the party’s executive committee as he criticized his handling of a month-old political crisis.
The move by Ghannouchi, the speaker of parliament, led Saeid to assume executive power in July, sack the prime minister and freeze parliament, an intervention Ennahdha described as a coup.
However, prominent leaders of his party, the largest in Tunisia’s parliament, demanded that he step down from the leadership amid divisions over his crisis response and strategic choices since the 2019 elections.
“The leader of Ennahda has decided to fire the executive members of the party and restructure it so as to meet the demands of the phase,” the party said in a statement.
Ennahdha has been the most powerful party in Tunisia since the 2011 revolution that led to the impeachment of its longtime president, playing a role in supporting successive coalition governments.
However, it lost its support as the economy stagnated and public services declined.
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