Hours after the polls in the legislative elections revealed the lowest turnout rate in Tunisia's modern political history, President Kais Saied appeared in a speech he chose to deliver from a main barracks of the National Guard and in the presence of prominent security leaders.

Against the backdrop of the Tunisian president's call to the military, security forces, and judiciary to confront those he described as conspirators against the state, and to respond to what he described as a demand to purify the country, the opposition Salvation Front asserted that Saeed had reached a major impasse that made him flounder and confuse tasks.

For its part, the Tunisian opposition considered Saeed's speech an insistence on jumping over the message that was revealed by the great reluctance to vote, and dragging the political arena into a security-judicial box in which Saeed punished his opponents according to laws and decrees he tailored to measure.

He will not turn back

In the politicians’ analysis of Saeed’s speech, Jawhar bin Mubarak, a leader in the National Salvation Front, explained - in his interview with the program “Beyond the News” (1/2/2023) - that President Saeed’s speech came in a historical and critical context, considering that he will not step back and will work to Apply the law as quickly as possible to save the country from the stage of chaos it has reached.

He added that the current Tunisian situation is the result of the interventions of many spectrums of political elites that led to the collapse of the country, but Saeed intervenes at a crucial time to fix the outstanding issues despite the pitfalls he faces, according to his opinion.

He also stressed that major security and trade union leaders in the country are referred to the judiciary for serious crimes related to undermining security in the state, and therefore the state works to implement the law and there is no room for disobedience and bullying over the foundations of the state.

denial letter

On the other hand, lawyer and law researcher Caesar Sayyah considered that Saied continues his discourse of denial, as he claims that the Tunisian people did not go to the polls because they hate parliament and are waiting for accountability, considering that this is only an attempt to justify the "abject failure" of the elections through which the people submitted. Tunisian studied in the first and second round.

You also understand the state of confusion experienced by Saeed's supporters, who said that they are trying to escape the fact that the Tunisian people rejected the July 25 system and are not involved in it, describing the current authority as tense and tense and could employ the solid apparatuses in the state to take revenge on its opponents and present some of them as scapegoats.

Take revenge on opponents

Speaking of political conspiracies, the head of the National Salvation Front in Tunisia, Ahmed Najib al-Shabi, accused President Saeed of employing the military judiciary to take revenge on his opponents in a way that harms the neutrality of the army.

It is noteworthy that President Saeed allocated space for union work and the subsequent arrest of a union official, the Secretary-General of the Private Highways Union, Anis Al-Kaabi, prompted the Labor Union to hold an emergency meeting of its executive office and issue a statement expressing its condemnation of the suspension as a blow to union work and its rights.

The statement indicated that the suspension took place immediately after the speech of the President of the Republic, calling on the various trade union structures in the country to mobilize and prepare to defend the trade union right, the right to strike, and public and individual freedoms.