“We will not abide by secret agreements the government has with the International Monetary Fund,” the leader of the union said.
Saturday 03/12/2022
The Secretary-General of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), Noureddine Taboubi, gives a speech in Tunis, November 30, 2022. (AFP)
TUNIS –
Tunisia’s powerful labour union attacked the president’s political and economic agenda on Saturday, including elections this month, saying it will no longer accept what it called a threat to democracy in its clearest challenge to him yet.
The UGTT union says it has more than a million members and has proven able to paralyse the economy with strikes. It has at times backed President Kais Saied after he seized most powers last year, but on other occasions has voiced tepid opposition.
“We no longer accept the current path because of its ambiguity and individual rule, and the unpleasant surprises it hides for the fate of the country and democracy,” UGTT’s leader Noureddine Taboubi said in a speech to thousands of supporters.
“We will not hesitate to defend rights and freedoms whatever the cost,” he added, in his strongest criticism yet of the president.
Saied has recently abandoned a policy of indifference, with which he dealt with the outbidding of some leaders of the UGTT, particularly that of the union’s Secretary-General Noureddine Taboubi.
Saied received, on Thursday the Head of Government Najla Bouden at the Carthage Palace, according to a press release from the Presidency relayed by Tunisia’s state agency TAP.
“As part of the exercise of its role in the consecration of social justice, the State does not give up subsidising basic products contrary to what has been relayed on this subject,” the president said.
He emphasised the imperative of constantly working to lower prices and specified the following:
“Those who are active in raising prices or illicitly stocking certain products have designs that oppose the claims rights of the Tunisian people to work, freedom, and national dignity,” Saied said.
While reaffirming his attachment to the social role of the State, the president noted that there was no room to sell public companies and establishments and that they had to be cleaned up and the causes that led to the situation in which the majority of them find themselves.
“Social justice is the very essence of stability and can only be achieved through the equitable distribution of wealth and the eradication of corruption which plagues many businesses,” he said, according to the same source.
Saied shut down the elected parliament last year and moved to rule by decree before writing a new constitution that was passed this summer in a referendum with low turnout, setting up elections for a new, weakened legislature on December 17.
Most political parties are boycotting the poll, saying the new parliament will have no power and faulting procedures the president has decreed, which include bringing the electoral commission under his purview.
Taboubi said the December election would “have no colour and taste” as a result of Saied’s constitution and that the vote lacked national unanimity.
The president’s critics have held repeated street protests. Saied says his actions were necessary to save Tunisia.
Though the UGTT has previously voiced concern, it has stopped short of openly opposing his agenda, except for a strike in the summer over wages and spending cuts.
This year, as the economy worsened, the new government Saied appointed angered the UGTT by proposing subsidy cuts and the restructuring of state-owned companies in a push for an IMF bailout needed to avert national bankruptcy.
“We will not abide by secret agreements the government has with the International Monetary Fund and the workers will stand up to it,” Taboubi said.
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