Saied Dodges Erdogan Comment Over Dead Democracy Under Guise Of ‘Outsider Interference’

• Roshan Amiri
• . April 9, 2022
• . Update: April 11, 2022 2:08 pm
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Turkey– Tunisia has not taken it too well as the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has decided to interfere in their internal politics. Erdogan made a comment regarding the dissolution of their parliament. In response, President Kais Saied has called this as an, “unacceptable interference in the internal affairs and totally contradicts the brotherly ties between the two countries and peoples and the principle of mutual respect between states.”

Erdogan had raised his voice against the dissolution of the parliament calling it a murder of democracy. The Tunisian Foreign Minister Othman Jerandi took to twitter to express his resentment over the interference and said, “I made a call to the Turkish Foreign Minister and the ambassador was summoned. I informed them of Tunisia’s rejection of President Erdogan’s statement as interference in Tunisian affairs, and that relations between the two countries should be based on respect for the independence of the national decision and the choices of the Tunisian people alone, and that our country does not allow us to question its democratic path.”

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The political crisis in Tunisia intensified last week when more than half of the members of parliament held an online session to cancel the edicts of Said, who responded by dissolving the parliament. Kais Saied has been accused on trying to bring the country back to dictatorship and ruin what has been built over the years in the economy. He did a power grab last year leaving Tunisians quite insecure about their future. But there has been general uproar amongst the members of the last house who last week held a plenary session online and voted to end Said’s exceptional measures. This meant to do away with his arbitrary suspension of the chamber and the sacking of the prime minister, along with the seizure of legislative and judicial powers.

After the dissolution of the Parliament, everyone was looking forward to fresh elections. Said postponed it by a few months. This has also not gone well into the minds of his opponents or Tunisians themselves. On his agenda is also plans to rewrite the constitution. For starters, under Article 80 of Tunisia’s 2014 Constitution, Saied cannot dissolve the parliament during an exceptional period of the kind he announced last year. Further, even Article 72, which the head of state invoked, does not allow him to do so. The dissolution of the assembly can only occur if the majority of deputies vote a motion of no-confidence in the government twice, and should prompt a new election within 90 days as stipulated by Article 89.