Jaouhar Ben M’barek and Chaima Aïssa, important exponents of the National Salvation Front, a political coalition that brings together all the main parties that oppose President Kais Saied, were arrested on Thursday in Tunisia, accused of governing the country in an authoritarian manner. They are accused of being involved in a plot to subvert the state order: the same accusations had been made in recent weeks against a dozen other opponents of Saied, including politicians, judges, trade unionists and journalists.
Saied is accused of gradually making an authoritarian turn in the country over the past three years. In July 2021, the president had suspended the work of parliament, and then dissolved it in March 2022. He subsequently governed by decree, until the approval of a new constitution which guarantees him broad powers and which instituted a new electoral law which does not it provides for the participation in elections of parties, but only of independent candidates. Turnout in the first elections held under this law, last December, was among the lowest in the world, and today Tunisia has a parliament with very limited powers.