TUNISIAN DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS

Supporters of Tunisia’s biggest political party, the moderate Islamist Ennahda, take cover from stones thrown at them by supporters of President Kais Saied, outside the parliament building in Tunis, Tunisia yesterday. Tunisia faced its worst crisis in a decade of democracy yesterday after President Saied ousted the government and froze parliament with help from the army in a move denounced as a coup by the main parties including Islamists. Saied’s dramatic move -- a decade on from Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, often held up as the Arab Spring’s sole success story -- comes even though the constitution enshrines a parliamentary democracy and largely limits presidential powers to security and diplomacy. Photo: Reuters