Tunisia party gives Saied 72 hours to vacancy office

The Free Destourian Party yesterday gave Tunisian President Kais Saied 72 hours to outline the steps through which he will vacate office and call for early presidential elections. The party threatened wide scale protests if the deadline was not met.

Abir Moussi, head of the Free Destourian Party, said that her party is interested in the presidential elections and has a female candidate who would like to run for the position; Moussi herself.

In the 2019 elections, Saied won a five-year presidential term.

However, Moussi said that “Saied is no longer an elected president of the Tunisian Republic according to Article 92 of the new constitution.”

Adding that “the constitutional oath that he took when he was elected in 2019 violates the constitutional oath stipulated in the new constitution, in addition to the absence of the institutions before which he took this oath.”

Her party, she explained, officially demanded Saied consider himself Officer-in-Charge of the President and call for holding early presidential elections.

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Moussi stated that her party “granted the president 72 hours to respond to these demands, otherwise, the party will commence protest actions and file a complaint at the United Nations.”

“We demand an official announcement of the date of the legislative elections,” Moussi said.

Early elections are due to be held on 17 December as part of exceptional measures that Saied imposed on 25 July 2021. The measures also included dismissing the elected government, dissolving the Supreme Judicial Council and Parliament, issuing legislation by presidential decrees, and approving a new constitution a year later.