Tunisian President Kais Saied late on Wednesday issued a decree dissolving parliament, which has been suspended since last year, after it defied him by voting to repeal decrees that he used to assume near total power. Speaking after an online session of more than half the parliament members, their first since he suspended the chamber in July, Saied accused them of a failed coup and a conspiracy against state security and ordered investigations into them. The parliament session and Saied's response intensified Tunisia's political crisis though it was not clear if they will prompt any immediate change in his grip on power.
Any move to arrest parliament members who took part in Wednesday's session, as Saied's threat of investigations may imply, would represent a major escalation in the confrontation between Saied and his opponents. "We must protect the state from division. We will not allow the abusers to continue their aggression against the state," Saied said in a video posted online. Saied's opponents accuse him of a coup when he suspended the chamber last summer, brushed aside most of the 2014 constitution, and moved to rule by decree as he set about remaking the political system.
Saied, a former law professor, says his actions were constitutional and necessary to save Tunisia from years of political paralysis and economic stagnation at the hands of a corrupt, self-serving elite. He says he will form a committee to rewrite the constitution, put it to a referendum in July, and then hold parliamentary elections in December.
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