Saied’s Dictatorship Destroys Tunisia, The Guardian

Tunisia was the Arab world’s only real democracy and the birthplace of the Arab spring and now it became a one-man show shunned by voters and a place where corruption and cronyism flourish, wrote British daily “The Guardian”.
President Kais Saied now looks to be a common post-revolutionary figure and a dictator who opts to eliminate the opposition. He came to power because Tunisians had grown disillusioned with a political class that seemed unable to resolve the country’s problems.
The newspaper said that Saied sacked the prime minister, suspended parliament, and assumed executive power, as his “self-coup” took place at the height of the pandemic in Tunisia.
Leaders of Islamist and secularist parties have been taken from their houses in recent weeks. Lawyers, business leaders, and the director of a major radio station are among those imprisoned.
Saied has criminalized dissent, hiding behind the absurd conspiracy theory that he is jailing “terrorists” and “traitors”, and declared “accomplices” any judge who might exonerate dissidents of the flimsy charge that they were part of a treasonous cabal, added the newspaper.
The president falsely claimed there had been a years-long plot to bring “hordes” of criminal immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa to the country “to transform the demographic composition of Tunisia”.
Moreover, while the president won praise from racist French politicians, it drew a sharp rebuke from African neighbors, who began evacuating their citizens, added “The Guardian”.
Tunisia turned to the IMF for a $2bn bailout, but the money won’t be lent to a dictatorial regime without support from civil society notably Tunisia’s powerful labor union which Saied has been repressing.