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Tunisia’s powerful trade union centre UGTT has backed out from the dialogue proposed by President Kais Saied for creating a roadmap for a new Republic after taking over full powers in July 2021
Tunisia’s powerful trade union centre UGTT has backed out from the dialogue proposed by President Kais Saied for creating a roadmap for a new Republic after taking over full powers in July 2021.
Saied recently appointed a lawyer believed to be close to him – Sadok Belaïd – to head a commission in charge of drafting a constitution for a “new Republic”. That was to be done through a “national dialogue”. The president has excluded the political parties from taking part in the dialogue. This commission will present “a draft constitution” to the president after national dialogue, which, at a later stage, will involve all the unions in the country.
However, at the end of a meeting of the UGTT’s governing body recently under the chairmanship of its secretary-general Noureddine Taboubi, the trade union announced its intentions to boycott the proposed dialogue. The trade union made it clear that it would not participate in the dialogue in the format proposed by President Kais Saied.
The UGTT believes that the dialogue is a proxy aimed to “endorse conclusions decided unilaterally in advance and force them on the people. The union leaders maintained that the dialogue was not focussing on the crisis that Tunisia was experiencing and did not envision a better future for the country.
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Saied announced in early May the establishment of a “national dialogue” which was awaited for months together. President is making a scathing attack on the political parties, accusing them of plundering the country. He told the nation that the national dialogue was meant to address the political crisis, the country is facing now.
Saied, elected in late 2019, assumed full power on 25 July 2021 by sacking the prime minister and suspending the parliament dominated by the Islamist-inspired party Ennahdha, his bête noire, before dissolving it in March. There are criticisms from several quarters for the high-handedness of the president and his unilateral decisions.
