A handout picture made obtainable by the Tunisian Presidency Press Service exhibits Tunisian President Kais Saied taking the oath of workplace throughout his swearing-in ceremony for a second time period as Tunisia’s president on the Parliament in Tunis, Tunisia, on Monday. (Xinhua-Yonhap)
Tunisia’s President Kais Saied has been inaugurated for a second time period, following a monthslong crackdown and string of arrests towards his political opponents.
Weeks after successful re-election with a 90.7% share of the vote, the 66-year-old former legislation professor in his inauguration speech Monday referred to as for a “cultural revolution” to fight unemployment, combat terrorism and root out corruption.
“The intention is to construct a rustic the place everybody can reside in dignity,” Saied mentioned in a speech addressing members of Tunisia’s parliament.
Saied’s Oct. 7 re-election got here after a turbulent first time period throughout which he suspended the nation’s parliament, rewrote its post-Arab Spring structure and jailed dozens of his critics in politics, media, enterprise and civil society. He has justified parts of the crackdown as essential to combat corruption and enemies of the state, utilizing populism to enchantment to Tunisians disillusioned with the route that those that preceded him took the nation after nationwide protests led to the 2011 ouster of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali .
He promised to focus on the “thieves and traitors on the payroll of foreigners” and blamed “counterrevolutionary forces” for obstructing his efforts to buoy Tunisia’s struggling economic system all through his first time period in workplace.
“The duty was not straightforward. The risks had been nice,” he mentioned. “The arms of the previous regime had been like vipers circulating all over the place. We may hear them hissing, even when we couldn’t see them.”
Although Saied proclaimed a dedication to respecting freedoms, many journalists had been prevented from protecting his swearing-in on Monday, resulting in a rebuke from the Nationwide Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists, which expressed “its agency condemnation of the continuing blackout coverage and restrictions on journalistic work” in a information launch on Monday. (AP)
