Tunisia: National Salvation Front pledges to end president’s ‘coup’

Tunisia’s National Salvation Front announced on Tuesday the start of a new stage of the struggle against what it calls the “coup” of President Kais Saied and “his populist programme aimed at destroying state institutions,” Rai Al-Youm has reported.

This follows the announcement two weeks ago of a general strike on 16 June by the country’s powerful UGTT labour union. According to the union, the government has ignored the principle of negotiations, given up its pledges to implement bilateral deals and refrained from reforming government institutions.

“It is time for the factions to stand together and face off the populist attack which is aimed at undermining society,” the National Salvation Front told a press conference attended by opposition groups. “[The coup] has paralysed the state and led to economic stagnation and loss of work opportunities.”

It added that the regime has returned to a policy of enforced disappearances, the prevention of public gatherings and the indictment of political opponents on “false” allegations.

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“The dialogue announced by President Kais Saied is a failure,” explained Ahmed Najib Al-Shabi, the head of the Front. “Everyone with political weight has rejected it.”

The National Salvation Front includes Ennahda Movement, the Hope Party, Qalb Tunis, Citizens against the Coup and a long list of political currents and figures who reject Saied’s political programme imposed through a series of “exceptional measures” by the president since last July.