Thousands of Tunisians took to the streets of the capital Tunis on Saturday in protest at President Kais Saied who they blame for a severe economic crisis including food shortages and soaring inflation.
The march was organised by the National Salvation Front, a coalition of opposition parties including the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha that had dominated Tunisia’s parliament before its dissolution by Saied.
Many protesters chanted “Go away, go away,” “Revolt against Kais the dictator,” and “the people want to sack the president.”
Tunisia’s debt far exceeds the GDP of the country and the government is now negotiating with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan of about two billion dollars.
Basic products such as flour, sugar and coffee are in short supply and crises such as Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine have increased the cost of imports such as cereals.
The country has also been hampered by a serious political crisis since President Saied seized full power in July 2021.
Saied staged a dramatic power grab in July last year and later pushed through a constitution enshrining his one-man rule, in what critics have called a return to autocracy in the only democracy to have emerged from the Arab Spring.
All Laarayedh, Tunisia’s former prime minister and a senior Ennahdha official, said the protest was an expression of “anger at the state of affairs under Kais Saied”.
“We are telling him to leave,” he declared.
Saied’s power grab was welcomed by some Tunisians tired of what they saw as a fractious and corrupt system established after the 2011 revolution that ousted late dictator Zine El Abidine Ali.
But a worsening economic situation, compounded by supply shortage in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, has agitated many in the North African country of 12 million.
If Saied stays, “Tunisia will have no future,” said Laarayedh, citing growing despair, poverty and unemployment.
The National Salvation Front has announced it will boycott a December vote to elect a new parliament with limited powers.
Ennahdha’s deep ideological rival, the secular Free Destourian Party (PDL), also organised a protest in the capital on Saturday.
Saied “is doing nothing, and things are only getting worse”, said Souad, a pensioner in her 60s at the secular party’s demonstration.
Some of the protesters carried empty containers to symbolise the rising cost of water due to inflation, which hit 9.1 percent in September.
Around 1,500 people joined the Ennahdha-led demonstration, while nearly 1,000 attended the PDL protest, the interior ministry told AFP.
In public remarks, Saied has argued he was working to “correct” economic troubles he had inherited from Tunisia’s post-Ben Ali leadership.
Cash-strapped Tunisia is in talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout loan of about $2 billion.