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TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) – The Tunisian president has announced his intention to draft a new electoral code and appoint a transitional leadership – and to retain the exceptional powers he seized in July, challenging the country’s young democracy .
In a speech on Monday evening, President Kais Saied pledged that the new initiatives would respect the hard-fought rights and freedoms of Tunisians and the democratic constitution.
Saied’s actions sidelined the long-ruling Tunisian Islamist party, which accuses him of a coup, and worried Islamist groups in the region. While many Tunisians welcome his decisions, human rights groups and others worry about the future of the only country to emerge from the turbulent uprisings of the Arab Spring with a new democratic system.
Saied spoke with supporters in the impoverished town of Sidi Bouzid, cradle of the Arab Spring, where many people are disappointed with the country’s inability to address economic and social issues since the toppling of its repressive rulers ago ten years.
He defended his July 25 decision to suspend parliament, sack the prime minister and seize executive powers, which he said was necessary to save the country amid financial turmoil and government management. government of the coronavirus crisis in Tunisia.
He invoked a special constitutional article allowing such measures in the event of imminent danger to the nation, and said they would be in place for 30 days. But they have been extended until further notice.
“Danger still looms over the country and I cannot leave it like a puppet in the hands of those operating in the shadows and corrupt people,” Saied said on Monday. He accused unidentified players of “plotting to sow chaos and confusion” in Tunisia, and said: “There is no question of going back.”
He promised a new electoral code to hold lawmakers more accountable to voters, and transitional arrangements to rule the country before appointing a new prime minister. He did not detail them.
Several lawmakers and personalities have been imprisoned since he took power.
Faced with criticism from international human rights groups, he insisted that “rights and freedoms will be respected” and that no one is jailed for political opinions.
The North African nation was widely seen as a model for emerging democracies, but failed to cure chronic unemployment and other social ills, especially in neglected provinces.
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