Tunisia has been going through tough days/months/years. Ten years ago, we started a revolution, kicked out our dictator, voted for new leadership, and changed the Constitution. Things didn't go well, economically but we won our democracy and freedom of speech.
After the last Elections, a scholar who belongs to no political party was elected as president. In the parliament, the Ennahdha party had the most support from the voters. But, as the biggest party, it also has the most haters, which prevented it from making an alliance and forming the government.
According to the constitution, in that case, the president gets to assign a prime minister. A while later, the president decided to turn on his chosen prime minister but he doesn't have the power to fire him because he was approved by the parliament and only the parliament can change him.
That situation started a kind of rivalry between the president and the Ennahdha party (that has the presidency of the parliament).
Here we should note that the economic situation is getting worse and the coronavirus is spreading wildly and out of control.
Today, on the day of the republic, there were many protests against the government and the parliament, especially the Ennahdha party. They weren't peaceful protests. The protestors attacked Ennahdha's offices in many regions of the country and even burned some of them.
This evening, our president, Kais Said, announced that he is stopping the parliament's activities and changing the prime minister, stating the very part of the constitution that contradicts what he's doing.
The reactions were varied. Most of the political parties kept quiet, to see how far this is going but some of them accused the president of dictatorship and announced that he's doing a coup d'état is he carries on with his plan.
The president's supporters, on the other hand, went out to the streets and celebrated "getting rid of the Ennahdha party". Some of these celebrations were peaceful but some others were happing inside the Ennahdha party's offices after breaking into them and burning what's inside of them.
Now, other political leaders are taking sides. Some of them announcing that they will ignore everything the president said, just because it's against the constitution, and saying they will go to the parliament tomorrow as scheduled as if nothing happened. The president is updating his plans and posting on social media. I'm sensing some hesitation on his part but we'll see in the near future.
His supporters don't seem to have any hesitation, though. They are posting things like, "it's a coup d'état and we like it" and "he's wrong but we're with him".
Thank you for your interest in the situation if you've read this far. And I hope my next post will bring better news.