Tunisia's problems grow worse while Kais Saied avoids public
When President Kais Saied reappeared recently after a two-week absence, he addressed a country whose political, economic and immigration woes grow steadily more intractable.
On April 4, after a nearly two-week public absence, Tunisian President Kais Saied reappeared on screen. Speaking in a hoarse voice and with a pallid face, he cursed his opponents who had questioned his absence in a country that now largely relies on a one-man power.
Tens of those dissidents are being investigated for supposed “contacts with foreign diplomats,” and many have been detained, after a number of judges were dismissed and the courts increasingly came under presidential influence.
Saeid’s only foreign policy announcement was the decision to appoint an ambassador to Syria, in line with the comeback of Bashar al-Assad promoted by most Arab states. However, a number of Tunisian missions in major foreign capitals have no envoy, including Brussels and Rome – while the flow of migration from Tunisia to Italy grows by the day as the weather improves. As the country is on the brink of bankruptcy, awaiting an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it was not even hinted that the president would sign it.
Speaking in the coastal city of Monastir on Thursday, Saied directly rejected the terms of the IMF loan, which include cuts to food and energy subsidies. Asked if he would accept the agreement's terms, Saied responded, “I will not hear diktats.”
