Today, Friday, the dissolved Tunisian Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi and other deputies will appear before the police concerned with terrorism issues on charges of “conspiring against state security” following a session of the frozen parliament that President Kais Saied considered a failed coup attempt, while the government published the results of the “electronic agitation” called for by Said. The majority of participants supported the establishment of a presidential system.

The assistant speaker of the dissolved Tunisian House of Representatives told Al Jazeera that Ghannouchi decided to appear before the anti-terror squad to testify regarding the hypothetical parliamentary session that was held on Wednesday with the participation of 121 deputies and witnessed the adoption of a law canceling the exceptional measures announced by Saeed last July 25, and included in particular the dissolution of the government. suspending the work of Parliament.

The Tunisian president responded to this hypothetical parliamentary session by announcing the dissolution of Parliament, and said that he had taken the decision based on Chapter 72 of the constitution “in order to preserve the state and its institutions.” The decision came 8 months after Saeed suspended the work of the House of Representatives and assumed full executive and legislative powers.

And it was reported earlier today that the speaker of the dissolved parliament refused to receive an official summons from the security squad to conduct an investigation with him.

Earlier today, Ghannouchi's office said that the Anti-Terrorism Squad had invited Ghannouchi to appear before it today.

Ennahda spokesman Imad Khamiri also confirmed that Parliament Speaker and Movement Chairman Rashid Ghannouchi had been summoned to interrogate him regarding the parliamentary session.

Today, a number of deputies appeared before the Tunisian unit specialized in terrorism crimes, and among these was the second deputy speaker of the dissolved parliament, Tariq Al-Fiti, who left the division's headquarters after the end of the investigation with him, according to a human rights source.

The Tunisian president had requested an investigation with the deputies who participated in the hypothetical parliamentary session, describing them as conspirators, and later the Court of Appeal opened an investigation into the session at the request of the Minister of Justice, Leila Jaffal.


"Parliament abroad"

With the prosecution of many members of the dissolved parliament, the head of the Heart of Tunisia party, MP Osama Al-Khelaifi, announced - in a post on his Facebook account - that consultations will be launched to establish a parliament in the diaspora and request political asylum for the MPs to protect them from what he described as "the brutality of the coup."

In another Facebook post, Assistant Speaker of the dissolved Parliament, Maher Al-Madhoub, announced that he had submitted a complaint to the Inter-Parliamentary Union against President Qais Saeed for arbitrarily revoking a parliamentary mandate, as he put it.

Al-Madhyoub attached the post with the text of a lengthy complaint addressed to the presidency of the Human Rights Committee of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Saeed said that the legislative elections will take place next December, which is the previously announced date (Anatolia Agency).

Happy and the elections

In the face of calls from several parties for early elections after the dissolution of parliament, Tunisian President Kais Saied expressed his surprise at talking about the need to hold legislative elections within 3 months.

During presenting the results of the electronic consultation on constitutional and legal reforms, Saeed said that whoever wants to implement Chapter 89 of the constitution - which sets a maximum deadline of 90 days for holding the elections - is more important, as he described it.

He added that the legislative elections will take place next December, which was the previously announced date.

He added, "There will be no dialogue with those who tried to overthrow and seek to divide Tunisians," and also hinted that parliamentarians who opposed his moves in Wednesday's session would not be allowed to run in the upcoming elections.

In statements after the dissolution of parliament, Ennahda Movement head Rached Ghannouchi confirmed that the movement will not participate in a referendum on constitutional and legal reforms that President Saeed intends to organize next July.

3/1 US State Department Press Briefing


March 31, 2022


Ned Price, State Department Spokesperson

The United States expresses its deep concern about the unilateral decision taken by the Tunisian President to dissolve Parliament and about what is being discussed

— US Embassy Tunis (@usembassytunis) March 31, 2022

America and the United Nations

In foreign reactions, US lawmakers condemned yesterday evening, Thursday, the decision of President Kais Saied to dissolve parliament, and said that they considered it a new threat to democracy in the country.

Prior to that, US State Department spokesman Ned Price expressed his country's concern over the dissolution of the Tunisian parliament and the prosecution of some of its deputies.

During the State Department's daily press briefing, Price called for the reactivation of the Tunisian parliament, stressing that the United States informed Tunisian officials that political reform cannot be carried out without transparency and coordination with parties, unions, and civil society institutions.

In New York, spokesman for the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Stephane Dujarric, expressed the organization's concern over the Tunisian president's decision to dissolve parliament.

Dujarric said the United Nations urges all Tunisian actors to avoid any actions that might increase political tensions.

e-consultation

Meanwhile, the Tunisian government published - today, Friday - the results of an electronic referendum on the extent of citizens' support for the transition to the presidential system.

The results of the electronic consultation showed the participation of nearly half a million people, and the desire of 86.4% of the participants for the country to switch to a presidential system, instead of the existing parliamentary system.

According to the data revealed by the Tunisian Minister of Communication Technologies Nizar Bennaji, the number of participants in the consultation reached 534,915 people, without specifying the percentage of those entitled to vote, as it was available to every Tunisian over 16 years old.

The final number of Tunisians eligible to vote reached 7,155 thousand, according to data from the Independent High Authority for Elections in 2019.

Saeed had launched in mid-January the "electronic national consultation", with the aim of "enhancing citizens' participation in the democratic transition process", and it continued until last March 20.

During his meeting with the Minister of Communication Technologies, President Saeed said that the consultation witnessed 120,000 electronic attacks and an attempt to thwart them from inside and outside, and they were confronted.

Al-Buhairi accuses

On the other hand, the former Tunisian Minister of Justice, the Vice-President of the Ennahda Movement, Noureddine Beheiri, accused President Kais Saied of causing the isolation and bankruptcy of Tunisia.

In his first press conference after his release, Al-Buhairi said that he had been kidnapped and an assassination attempt behind which was the Minister of Interior Tawfiq Sharaf El-Din, adding that this was preceded by a press defamation campaign, as he put it.

The former minister was held under house arrest for more than two months, and this measure was lifted in early March, after he went on a long hunger strike and spent most of that period in hospital.

The house arrest was also lifted for the former official in the Ministry of Interior, Fathi Al-Baladi, who was arrested with Al-Bahri on the same day.