Kais Saied announces he will seek re-election as president to “save Tunisia from foreign forces''
Current president Kais Saied, who has been criticized by many authoritarians, has announced that he will run for re-election in this year's presidential election.
Saied's re-election could spell the end for Tunisia's already fragile democratic system [Getty[
Tunisia’s authoritarian incumbent president Kais Saied announced on Saturday that he will run for a second presidential term and will legally submit his candidacy in the prescribed period.
In a speech commemorating the 24th anniversary of the death of Tunisian statesman Habib Bourguiba, Saied criticised parties that boycotted the legislative elections “but are now rushing to the presidential elections,” according to Sky News Arabia.
He accused unnamed parties of “seeking refuge in foreign support”, noting sarcastically that “these [outside] Political parties cannot stand in presidential elections in Tunisia. ”
“Many people need to know that power is not about ambition, chairs and couches as they imagine and dream about, but about responsibility,” he added.
Since the 2021 authoritarian coup, Mr Said has come under criticism for what rights groups have called a wide-ranging and comprehensive crackdown on the opposition, arresting scores of opposition figures, critical journalists and political activists. It has been.
Chaima Issa, one of Tunisia's most prominent critics of Saied's government, who was arrested and charged with “insulting the president” in December last year, said the Tunisian president was building a “tyranny.” Ta.
Mr Said's critics are often accused by him and his supporters of being agents of outside forces and seeking to corrupt Tunisia through African immigration. He is one of the only non-white political leaders to believe in the Great Replacement theory. The Great Replacement Theory is a classic white supremacist conspiracy theory that holds that immigrants are being used by shadowy elites to “replace” natives.
Said doubled down on such rhetoric when announcing his presidential bid, vowing to “cleanse the country of those who spread corruption everywhere and there will be no turning back.”
“Since January 14, 2011, Tunisia has been committed to providing survival protection against those who seek to collapse the state, blow it up from within, attack public facilities, and those who seek to undermine the state system in order to: “We are waging a war. We are attacking our homeland. But the men and women of Tunisia have shown unprecedented awareness of this plot hatched against them,” Said said in a speech on Saturday.
“[T]”The people know all the secrets and will confront with the same determination, will and high spirit of patriotism those who seek to harm independent Tunisia by throwing themselves into the arms of foreigners.” added.
Tunisia's presidential elections are scheduled to be held in September or October this year, with the main opposition hope going to Essam Chebbi, the jailed leader of the centrist Liberal Democratic Party.
