Kais Saied is a Tunisian politician, jurist and retired law professor currently serving as the seventh President of Tunisia since October 2019. He was president of the Tunisian Association of Constitutional Law from 1995 to 2019.
Having worked in various legal and academic roles since the 1980s, Saied joined the 2019 presidential election as an independent social conservative supported by Ennahda and others across the political spectrum. Running on a populist platform with little campaigning, Saied sought to appeal to younger voters, pledged to combat corruption and supported improving the electoral system. He won the second round of the election with 72.71% of the vote, defeating Nabil Karoui, and was sworn in as president on 23 October 2019.
In January 2021, protests began in response to alleged police brutality, economic hardship and the COVID-19 pandemic. On 25 July 2021, Saied dismissed the parliament and Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, executing a successful self-coup. Since then, Saied oversaw the dismissal of the judiciary and arrest of politicians. He ruled by decree until he was successful in passing a new constitution which granted him more powers and called snap legislative elections which resulted in a record low turnout.
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“We want to correct the paths of the revolution and history.”
Source: Kais Saied (2021) cited in " Tunisian president announces constitutional referendum in 2022 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/12/13/tunisia-president-announces-referendum-and-elections" on Aljazeera, 13 December 2021.
