TUNIS

- Tunisian President Kais Saied is facing sharp criticism from his opponents for wasting public money in unbearable living conditions, while his supporters insist that he is a clean man and that all the accusations raised around him are nothing more than a beating below the belt.

The accusations came after the circulation of a document on the communication platforms that was said to be a request for offers by the Presidency of the Republic, posted on the public procurement website, to obtain red meat worth one million and 141 thousand dinars (about 450 thousand dollars), which was considered an exaggerated waste.

Yesterday, Saturday, the communication sites were filled with a lot of criticism, as some considered that the president is marketing to the people an image of himself as being ruthless and ascetic in the world, while he buys meat for his presidential palace with exorbitant money at a time when the country is experiencing its darkest crises, according to their opinion.

unsupervised boss

The former deputy in the frozen parliament, Ziad Al-Hashemi, commented on his page, that President Qais Saeed is demanding the purchase of red meat for the mentioned amount, while the government is asking the general public, floundering in a state of famine, to austerity, in a situation characterized by a surge in the loss of several basic materials.

Comments on the communication sites accuse Saeed of using a populist rhetoric based on the meanings of abstinence and living simply like other citizens and fighting monopoly and corruption with the aim of gaining power and excluding it, considering that he disposes of state resources without any oversight.

Al-Hashemi says that the presidential system imposed by Saeed reveals a waste of public money without oversight by the people, parliament or the media, indicating that the media did not report what happened, unlike what happened with former President Moncef Marzouki when he was accused during his rule of buying large amounts of fish.

While some blamed the president for calling people to austerity and supporting the state's efforts while he preserves welfare, others questioned the reason for the increase in the presidential palace's purchases of meat since Qais Saeed came to power in 2019.

Conspiracy theory

On the other hand, the Secretary-General of the Democratic Current Party, former minister Ghazi al-Shawashi, refuses to delve into the issue of purchases allocated by the Presidential Palace for red meat, due to his uncertainty about the authenticity of what is being circulated.

But he confirms to Al Jazeera Net that Qais Saeed adopts a hollow populist discourse by raising the slogans of fighting corruption and speculation and fighting poverty and unemployment, while on the ground he failed more than a year after taking exceptional decrees to preserve the fading strength of Tunisians.

The president’s meetings with the prime minister and the ministers of trade and interior have been repeated, but he insists on denial by perpetuating the conspiracy theory and accusing his opponents of being behind the loss of goods to ship the street against him, while the state’s lack of liquidity is behind the crisis of supplying goods, as al-Shawashi sees.

Al-Shawashi considers that Saeed is incompetent at the economic and social level, and that he has concentrated a weak government without a project and lacking in powers, ruling out any reforms during his rule because he himself constitutes the biggest obstacle to the government and puts it in a dead end.

Al-Shawashi believes that Saeed imposes a fait accompli and monopolizes power by force of arms to implement a political project in which the economic and social aspect is absent, explaining that most of his supporters are not convinced of his project as much as they oppose the Ennahda movement and those who ruled with it.

Hit below the belt

On the other hand, supporters of President Qais Saeed consider what is being circulated about red meat as a desperate attempt to hit the president below the belt by his opponents, and politician Ahmed Al-Kahlawi tells Al-Jazeera Net that those who create these seditions are trying to distort his image.

Al-Kahlawi confirms that Tunisians are certain of the president’s clean hand, considering that there is a fierce war against him by his opponents using the monopolists’ paper with the aim of charging the street and mobilizing it to stage demonstrations against him, which he ruled out because people lost confidence in those who previously ruled.

Raising the issue of buying red meat at exorbitant prices from the presidential palace is nothing more than a poor fall in populism by Saeed's opponents, according to Al-Kahlawi, who believes that there is a siege imposed on him to discourage him from holding the system that has degraded the country over the past decade.

Al-Kahlawi rejects the accusations against the president about his attempt to establish an authoritarian regime, noting that the exceptional measures he took on July 25, 2021 were necessary to save the country from the state of destruction that it has experienced over the past ten years.