Kais Saied, who has been re-elected president of Tunisia, was first elected democratically in 2019 earlier than staging an influence seize in 2021.
He sees himself as a person on a divine mission, however critics see him as ushering in a brand new authoritarian regime.
Clear-shaven, with an unwaveringly upright and slender determine, Saied has a stiff manner.
He provides only a few media interviews, and limits his public feedback to monologues in movies printed on Fb through which he speaks in stern classical Arabic, at instances with perceptible anger.
Inside three years, the 66-year-old has sacked three prime ministers.
“The president doesn’t consider within the position of intermediaries between the individuals and himself,” mentioned Romdhane Ben Amor, spokesman for the Tunisian Discussion board for Social and Financial Rights (FTDES).
“He believes he has a revolutionary divine mission that may fulfil the individuals’s will.”
Saied has usually alleged the existence of plots aiming to undermine the nation whereas he wages “a struggle of liberation and self-determination”.
Final week, he referred to as on Tunisians to “vote massively” to usher in what he referred to as an period of “reconstruction”.
He cited “a protracted struggle towards conspiratorial forces linked to international circles”, accusing them of “infiltrating many public providers and disrupting tons of of tasks” below his tenure.
From day one, Saied pledged to proper Tunisia’s political and financial wrongs after the nation ousted longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.
5 years into his time period, rights group Amnesty Worldwide has denounced “a worrying decline in basic rights within the birthplace of the Arab Spring”, the regional uprisings towards authoritarian rule that started in 2011 in Tunisia.
A constitutional regulation professor, Saied turned outstanding in 2011 throughout tv appearances expounding on his space of experience.
He constructed his 2019 marketing campaign on the motto “the individuals need” — echoing slogans used through the revolution towards Ben Ali — and received his first time period democratically in a landslide with 73 % of the vote.
– ‘Overseas diktats’ –
In 2021, he staged a sweeping energy seize and dismissed parliament, changing it with a rubber-stamp legislature.
A 12 months later, he consolidated energy by rewriting the structure, enshrining a one-man rule which, to many critics, raises similarities to the regimes of Ben Ali and his predecessor, Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia’s first president in 1957.
However for Saied, the nation of 12 million has but to achieve its heyday.
He has defiantly accused worldwide establishments and organisations of interference, whereas alleging that native rights teams obtain “enormous sums of cash” from overseas, supposed to undermine the nation.
In 2023, Saied rejected “international diktats” from the Worldwide Financial Fund over a bailout for the closely indebted economic system.
Saied mentioned the measures would solely “result in extra poverty”.
As an alternative, he referred to as for revival of the nation’s phosphates trade.
– Calligraphy novice –
Internationally, Saied has maintained a detailed relationship with neighbouring Algeria, a key supporter offering cheaper power and monetary credit.
A proponent of Pan-Arabism, he stands with the Palestinians and has strengthened ties with Iran, Russia and China.
However Tunisia stays a strategic regional associate for the USA and France — its major monetary supporters and arms suppliers.
Born in 1958 in Beni Khiar, close to jap Tunisia’s Nabeul, Saied grew up in a middle-class household.
He holds conservative views on social points, significantly on homosexuality, and is married to Justice of the Peace Ichraf Chebil with whom he has two daughters and a son.
Saied is a classical Arabic music afficionado and a calligraphy novice, usually handwriting speeches and letters with ink and dip pens.
He has presided over a wave of arrests focusing on the political opposition and different critics.
However he additionally has his supporters.
In Ariana within the northern suburbs of Tunis, 45-year-old mechanic Slah Assali remembers Saied as a “variety and respectable” buyer.
“A newspaper in hand and a cup of espresso, he would typically sit and chat with us on the store,” he advised AFP. “He would clarify political occasions within the nation.”
Assali, echoing Saied’s personal speaking factors, mentioned he would vote for Saied once more as a result of he’s “severe and hard-working but usually hindered by hidden fingers”.
Imed Mehimdi, a waiter at a restaurant in Ariana, described Saied as modest and type.
“He has put the nation again on monitor,” he mentioned. “He saved Tunisia within the face of many disasters” and “fought corruption”.
