More than 120 Tunisian MPs are facing charges.

They dared to organize a plenary session on the Zoom internet platform.

According to President Kaïs Saïed, this was a "failed coup attempt": He finally dissolved parliament.

As early as July of last year, he suspended its activities and sent MPs home.

With a final attempt, more than half of the deputies rebelled against the power of the head of state, who has ruled the last democratic hopeful country in the region with practically no restrictions for eight months.

Hans Christian Roessler

Political correspondent for the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb based in Madrid.

  • Follow I follow

On Wednesday, the 124 of the 217 MPs made an unsuccessful attempt to declare the emergency decrees invalid.

Since they are denied access to the parliament building, they arranged to meet via zoom;

as a result, the president allegedly temporarily blocked the service in Tunisia.

Saïed accuses the parliamentarians of conspiring against the state, for which they should be punished.

But with his latest move, the head of state himself is in conflict with the constitution.

With reference to the emergency article 80 he had disempowered parliament and government.

“The constitution is crystal clear.

Parliament cannot be dissolved during the state of emergency,” says Saïd Benarbia from the independent “International Jurist Commission” ICJ in Geneva.

Donors are not abandoning Tunisia

According to the constitution, elections must now be held within 90 days.

So far, Saïed's timetable for returning to everyday democratic life has been different.

He wanted to take his time, the Tunisians were not supposed to vote until December 17th.

Before that, they are only supposed to vote on a new constitution in July, which the President is currently having experts draft.

By March 20, citizens were asked to submit proposals for the new Basic Law online.

But the return was disappointing.

On Wednesday, the President complained about numerous attempts by domestic and foreign hackers to obstruct the process.

During the election campaign two and a half years ago, he made no secret of his aversion to parliamentary party democracy.

Many Tunisians seem to have had enough of the endless squabbling between the parties and initially thought it was good that the president took a firm hand against the rampant corruption.

For a long time, she wasn't bothered by his authoritarian style of leadership and his dealings with parliament. Only in the past few days have the protests picked up again.

In the dispute over parliament, it could prove useful for the president that in February he dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council and filled it with lawyers of his choice.

The EU and the US keep voicing their “concerns”.

But donors are not abandoning Tunisia, which is on the brink of bankruptcy.

The EU recently announced a loan of four billion euros.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) praises the "fruitful" talks about the fourth billion-euro loan since 2011. But they hold social explosives.

The powerful trade union confederation UGT has declared war on the “painful reforms” the government is talking about.

The cuts demanded by the IMF are unacceptable because of the supply crisis and the consequences of the pandemic.