Kais Saied says the move, eight months after Parliament was suspended, aims to “preserve the state and its institutions”.
Tunisia’s President Kais Saied has announced on state television that he is dissolving the country’s parliament, eight months after suspending it in a July takeover.
“Today, at this historic moment, I announce the dissolution of the Assembly of People’s Representatives in order to preserve the state and its institutions,” he said on Wednesday.
He made the announcement at a National Security Council meeting, hours after lawmakers held a plenary session online and voted on a bill opposing his “extraordinary measures.”
After the online meeting, Tunisia’s Justice Minister Leila Jeffal called on the Attorney General to launch a judicial inquiry into members of a suspended parliament for “conspiracy against state security”, local media reported.
Saied condemned Parliament’s move as a “coup attempt” and said those responsible had “betrayed” the nation.
Tunisian lawmakers on Wednesday voted to repeal the presidential decrees that suspended their chamber and gave Kais Saied near-full power, openly defying him in an online meeting, though he dismissed their meeting as illegal.
The former law professor, who was elected in 2019 amid public anger at the political class, sacked the government on July 25 last year, freezing the assembly and seizing sweeping powers.
He later gave himself the power to govern and legislate by decree, and seized control of the judiciary in what rivals saw as further blows to democracy in the birthplace of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.
Saied’s moves were initially welcomed by many Tunisians, fed up with the often deadlocked political system that emerged from the revolution that toppled longtime leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
But increasing numbers of critics say he has led the country, which is also facing a grinding economic crisis, down a dangerous path back to autocracy.