Correcting the Course of the Revolution Cannot Be Done Through Coups and Absolute Autocracy

Statement of the Workers’ Party of Tunisia on the Occasion of the Coup of Kais Saied

Original (in Arabic)

The Workers’ Party, which has already warned for a while of the dire scenarios that threaten the country, include the scenario of coups and slips of violence:

1 — We considers that what the Head of State has done, which was expected based on several indicators, perhaps the most prominent of which is the involvement of the military in the struggle of the wings of the system, is a clear legal violation of the Constitution and the provisions of Chapter 80 that he adopted, and from a political point of view exceptional anti-democratic measures have embodying the endeavour of Kais Saied. For a while, he has monopolised all powers, executive, legislative, and judicial, and inaugurated a path of revolution towards re-establishing the system of absolute autocracy anew.

2 — We consider that this zig-zag will open a new phase that will increase the seriousness of the crisis situation that the country is suffering from all levels, and may even lead to its fall into a cycle of violence, fighting and terrorism.

3 — This confirms that the Tunisian people are in dire and urgent need for a profound change that will extricate the country from the suffocating and comprehensive crisis in which it has regressed as a result of the reactionary choices followed throughout the past decade, and renews the call to overthrow the entire system of government, the presidency, parliament and government, which requires them to be held accountable, led by the Ennahda movement, for what it caused; economic devastation, financial bankruptcy, rampant corruption, terrorism, political assassinations, plunging the country into dependency and debt, and destroying all corners of the lives of Tunisian women and men.

4 — We renews our conviction that the desired change cannot be enacted with the support of Kais Saied’s coup or by allying with the Ennahda movement in any way, but rather it is the work of the Tunisian people and in the horizon of establishing a people’s democracy based on a civil state with power in the hands of the people, the sovereignty of the country over its capabilities and resources, independent political decision-making, social justice, and equality between male and female citizens.

5 — We call on the Tunisian people to continue expressing their positions and reject calls for confrontation that are being pushed by the components of the ruling system backed by regional axes and international powers to serve their interests. It also calls on them to be vigilant about the intentions of those intrigues in the state from supporters of the old regime, the deep state, money mafias and smuggling.

6 — We call upon all democratic and progressive forces, parties, organizations, associations, actors and personalities to hasten to meet around a mechanism for consultation in order to formulate a unified vision to confront these dangerous developments and their repercussions that could plunge the country into a cycle of violence and civil strife or lead it to fall again under the tyranny of absolute autocracy which the Tunisian people made huge sacrifices to get rid of.

Workers’ Party of Tunisia

July 26, 2021