Tunisia’s parliament will hold two full sessions this week, the speaker said on Monday, to consider revoking President Kais Saied moves toward a new constitution and one-man rule.
The sessions would be the first by the suspended chamber, since Saied seized most executive powers last July, and present the biggest direct challenge to the legitimacy of Saied’s actions.
Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi, who heads Ennahda, which is the biggest party in the chamber with a quarter of the seats, has been one of Saied’s most vocal critics since July, accusing him of a coup.
Saied, a former constitutional lawyer, has shown little appetite for compromise since his landslide second-round election victory as a political neophyte in 2019.
Two other major parties, Heart of Tunisia and Karama, as well as a number of independent parliament members, are expected to join the session, meaning more than half of all members might be present.
However, the parliament in the Ottoman-era Bardo Palace in Tunis has been closed off by the army and police since Saied’s intervention so any new session may have to take place online.