14 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Thousands of people took to the streets of Tunisia this Saturday in a new and massive protest against the country’s president, Kais Saied, who they accuse of having staged a self-coup after assuming Parliament’s powers, in a commemorative march of the 12th anniversary of the Jasmine Revolution that overthrew former President Zine al Abidine Ben Ali.
Hours before the start of the protest marches, the security forces have been deployed in all the main streets of the center of the capital of the same name, as reported by the correspondent of the pan-Arab media outlet Al Arabiya.
The political parties and organizations issued communiqués on the occasion of the commemoration of January 14, in which they agreed to “continue the fight” to translate the slogans raised during the events of the revolution, and to confront what they described as “the path of the president Saied to circumvent democracy”, according to a joint statement collected by the official Tunisian news agency TAP.
In a gesture of defiance, Saied walked on Friday night along the main avenue of the capital, Habib Bourguiba, where he warned that “there is no place for traitors in the country”, before declaring that “those who accuse Tunisia of being a dictatorship are the same ones who want to destroy it”.
Saied has promoted since July 2021 a series of measures to reform the political system of Tunisia, including a constitutional referendum, approved in the midst of the opposition boycott, which reinforces the powers of the Presidency. The opposition has denounced an authoritarian drift of the president and has demanded his resignation.
