07 Aug 2021; MEMO: Tunisian President Kais Saied confirmed on Friday that he will never back down, in response to the requests, specifically from the Ennahda Movement, to retract some of the exceptional measures he issued earlier following the activation of Article 80 of the Constitution. The president's speech also included a reference to the post-25 July era.
During the oath-taking ceremony of the Minister of Health Ali Mrabet, Saied praised the role of the military institution in facing the coronavirus crisis, noting that the country acquired millions of coronavirus vaccinations in a short period, while urging the population to get vaccinated.
Saied expressed in a video published by the Presidency of the Republic (concerning the previous government): "The Tunisians' health has been trifled with for months. I thank Tunisian men and women who have volunteered from all over the world to provide aid. Long months have passed, and they only talk about this pandemic in the media, whereas the people who have been affected by this deadly and fatal disease are struggling without even finding air to breathe."
He continued:
"We thank Allah for antibiotics in medicine and law, and we praise Allah for the availability of vaccines in hospitals and in the text of the Constitution to confront all kinds of viruses, including political viruses."
Saied asserted: "There are attempts to confuse us, and I say this for the record. I say to those who want to confuse us or think that they can confuse us, I say that all attempts will never baffle us, and the ridiculous manoeuvres and quibbles that they produce every day on social media only increase our determination and steadfastness to move forward, we will not we never turn back."
In the same context, he stated: "There are medicines that have expired and are no longer useful and must be thrown in the trash of history, as they have no place in the register of the revolution and the people."
Saied's words may be hinting at the political parties he considers to be out of the game.
He also concluded: "Let them always remember that we are committed and determined to move forward to write a new history for Tunisia – a bright history for the Tunisian people."
