Quays Saied

Kais Saied (2019)

Kais Saied ( Arabic قيس سعيد, DMG Qais Suʿayyid , French Kaïs Saïed ; * February 22, 1958 in Béni Khiar , Nabeul Governorate ) is a Tunisian lawyer , professor of constitutional law and conservative politician . Saied was elected President of the country in the presidential election in Tunisia on October 13, 2019, and took over from Mohamed Ennaceur on October 23, 2019 .

Life

Kais Saied is the son of Moncef Saied and Lalla Zakia from Beni Khiar, a middle-class family. His paternal uncle, Hicham Saied, was the first pediatrician in Tunisia to gain worldwide fame in the 1970s for the separation of Siamese twins .

Saied studied law and received a Diplôme d'études approfondies (DEA) in international law from the Faculté de Droit et des sciences politiques de Tunis (Faculty of Law, Political and Social Sciences of Tunis), a Diplôm from the Académie internationale du Droit constitutionnel ( AIDC - English IADC, International Academy of Constitutional Law, German IAVR - International Academy of Constitutional Law) in Tunis and a diploma from the International Institute for Humanitarian Law in Sanremo , Italy.

In 1986 he took up his first professorship at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Political Science at the University of Sousse . During this time he became

• from 1989 to 1990 member of the expert group of the General Secretariat of the Arab League
• from 1993 to 1995 expert at the Arab Institute for Human Rights
• from 1994 to 1999 director of the Public Law Institute at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Political Science of Sousse
• and from 1990 to 1995 General Secretary and Vice President of the Tunisian Association for Constitutional Law.

He was also a member of the Scientific Council and the Board of Directors of the IAVR from 1997 and President of the Tunis Center for Constitutional Law for Democracy, and from 1999 taught at the Faculty of Law, Political and Social Sciences in Tunis .

After the 2011 revolution, he was a member of the committee of experts responsible for drafting Tunisia's new constitution .

He is also the author of numerous books and articles on constitutional law, but never obtained a doctorate and retired in 2018.

President since 2019

Saied was one of the first declared candidates in the Tunisian presidential election in 2019 . During the election campaign, he cultivated the image of a humble man. He continued to live in a simple servant apartment, rode the bus and subway, and met citizens in popular cafes.

During the election campaign, he represented ultra-conservative positions in society and a law-and-order course in security policy. He spoke out in favor of the death penalty and against equal rights for women in inheritance law. The Islamic law should be the basis of case law. In an interview, Saied accused foreigners of wanting to finance and spread homosexuality in Tunisia . But above all, he promised the people that, as president, he would implement a plan against corruption .

Saied not only rejects the normalization of relations with Israel , he even describes it as "treason". "We are at war with Zionism and normalization is treason," he said. He went on to declare: "Anyone who [...] normalizes relations with Zionism, which stole the land of the Palestinian people and drove them out of their land, is a traitor".

He also refrained from major rallies during the election campaign and, according to his own statements, did not accept any election donations.

Aside from his political position, Saied is particularly noticeable for his use of standard Arabic instead of the Tunisian dialect and his non-partisanship.

Because of his determination to put an end to corruption and his motionless facial expressions, he was nicknamed "Robocop".

In the first round of the presidential election he took first place with 18.4% of the vote and competed against Nabil Karoui in the second round . Saied clearly won the second round with 72.7 percent against Karoui. Saied was not only supported and elected by large parts of the Tunisian youth, the Muslim-conservative Ennahda party also supported him.

Analyst Michaël Ayari of the International Crisis Group confirms: “Nobody really believed in this extraordinary candidate without political experience. Kais Saied embodies honesty and the fight against corruption, he is a man who believes that everything is regulated by the application of the law. Kais Saied embodies the disappointed hopes of 2011, he speaks for the marginalized, wants to restore dignity and fight regional inequalities ”.

Institutional crisis 2021

In January 2021, Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi announced a cabinet reshuffle and the appointment of several new members of the government. The new ministers were confirmed by parliament. However, President Kaïs Saïed refused to swear them in because several ministers were suspected of corruption. He took the view that this was against the constitution and also criticized the fact that there had been irregularities in the vote of the Council of Ministers on the cabinet reshuffle.

In early April 2021, Kais Saied refused to ratify a government bill to set up a constitutional court. Tunisia has had none since the revolution, although the constitution of the Republic of Tunisia, which came into force in 2014, required it to be set up no later than one year after it came into force. Saied rejected the law on the grounds that this constitutional deadline had been exceeded. However, he also rejected an amendment to the constitution to cure the deadline problem, on the grounds that a constitutional amendment would require the approval of a (non-existent) constitutional court. Some political observers suspected that Saied's stance on the blockade could be traced back to the possible competence of a constitutional court to remove the president from office. It was also speculated that he wanted to create a crisis in order to replace the constitution with a completely different one.

On July 25, 2021, the national holiday, thousands of demonstrators called for the dissolution of parliament and the drafting of a new constitution as part of a transition phase led by Saied. Meanwhile, the health crisis associated with the COVID-19 pandemic had worsened. On the same evening, Kais Saied dismissed the Hichem Mechichi government with immediate effect on the basis of paragraph 80 of the constitution, which in exceptional cases provides for the concentration of power in his hands for 30 days, and announced the following measures:

• the suspension of Parliament and the lifting of the immunity of its members
• the formation of a new government that would be directly subordinate to him
• conducting government business by decree
• the chair of the prosecutor's office

Parliamentary President Rached al-Ghannouchi , the leader of the Ennahda party, immediately accused him of having carried out a “ coup against the revolution”.

Private

Kais Saied is married to the judge Ichraf Chebil, whom he met while studying at the University of Sousse. The couple have three children.

Web links

Commons : Kais Saied  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Qui est Kais Saied, l'infatigable marcheur, qui a emporté le premier tour de la présidentielle en Tunisie. Retrieved September 23, 2019 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} biography of Kaïs Saïed - presidential candidate - List 17 - Tunisia explorer. Retrieved on September 23, 2019 (German). 
3. ↑ aroua: Tunisie: Kais Saïd, candidat à la présidentielle de 2019. In: Directinfo. Retrieved September 23, 2019 (Fri-FR). 
4. ^ Présidentielle en Tunisie: Kais Saied, la revolution austère. In: Le Point. October 9, 2019, accessed May 12, 2020 . 
5. ^ Tunisie - Mais, qui est Kaïs Saïed, favori de la course au Palais de Carthage? May 12, 2020, accessed on September 23, 2019 (French). 
6. ^ ^{A b} Martin Gehlen: Kaïs Saïed: Victory for the outsider . In: The time . October 14, 2019, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed October 14, 2019]).
7. ↑ ^{a b} Presidential Tunisienne: “Robocop”, ultraconservateur… 10 choses à savoir sur Kaïs Saïed. Retrieved September 23, 2019 . 
8. ↑ tachles newsletter from October 17, 2019
9. ↑ Tunisia elections: 'Robocop' and 'Berlusconi' head to second round ( en ) In: Middle East Eye . Retrieved September 17, 2019.
10. ^ Elections in Tunisia - Kais Saied wins the first round of the presidential election. September 17, 2019, accessed September 23, 2019 . 
11. ↑ tagesschau.de: Non-party becomes President of Tunisia. Retrieved October 14, 2019 . 
12. ^ Frida Dahmani: Tunisie: requiem pour la Cour constitutionnelle. In: jeuneafrique.com . April 7, 2021, accessed July 26, 2021 (French). 
13. ↑ President dismisses Prime Minister Mechichi. Deutschlandfunk , July 25, 2021, accessed on the same day.