Tunisian President Kais Saied has sacked the Defence minister Monday, a day after ousting the prime minister and suspending parliament, plunging the young democracy into constitutional crisis in the midst of a pandemic.
On Monday afternoon, the presidency announced the dismissals of Defence Minister Ibrahim Bartaji and Hasna Ben Slimane, the acting justice minister.
The president, who under the constitution controls the armed forces, warned his opponents against taking up arms, threatening that if anyone “fired a single bullet, government forces would respond with a rain of bullets.
Mechichi said he would hand power to the man chosen by the president, in his first comments since the shock move.
Saied declared on Sunday he had taken the necessary decisions to save Tunisia, the state and the Tunisian people, following street protests in multiple cities against the government’s handling of the Covid pandemic.
Street clashes erupted Monday outside the army-barricaded parliament, after Saied dismissed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and ordered parliament closed for 30 days, a move the biggest political party Ennahdha decried as a “coup.
Elsewhere, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday spoke by telephone with the Tunisian president asking him to respect democracy and “maintain open dialogue with all political actors and the Tunisian people.
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