Kais Saied

Kais Saied (قَيس سَعيد; born 22 February 1958) is a Tunisian politician, jurist and retired professor of law currently serving as the seventh president of Tunisia since October 2019.

His paternal uncle, Hicham Saïed, was the first pediatric surgeon in Tunisia, known for having separated two conjoined twins in the 1970s.

Kaïs Saïed completed his secondary studies at Sadiki College.

Having worked in various legal and academic roles since the 1980s, Saied joined the 2019 presidential election as an independent social conservative supported by Ennahda and others across the political spectrum.

Running on a populist platform with little campaigning, Saied sought to appeal to younger voters, pledged to combat corruption and supported improving the electoral system.

A jurist by training, he is a specialist in constitutional law, and secretary-general of the Tunisian Association of Constitutional Law between 1990 and 1995 then vice-president of the association since 1995.

Director of the public law department at the University of Sousse between 1994 and 1999, then at the Faculty of Juridical, Political and Social Sciences of Tunis of the University of Carthage from 1999 to 2018, he was a member of the group of experts of the General Secretariat of the Arab League between 1989 and 1990, expert at the Arab Institute for Human Rights from 1993 to 1995 and member of the committee of experts responsible for revising the draft Tunisian Constitution in 2014.

He was also a member of the scientific council of several commissions academics.

He was president of the Tunisian Association of Constitutional Law from 1995 to 2019.

While a visiting professor at several Arab universities, in 2013 he refused to be part of the commission of experts whose mission was to find a legal solution to the problem of the Independent High Authority for Elections.

From 2013 to 2014, Kais Saied participated in several political clubs and meetings, which bring together young people.

In 2016, the Mouassissoun movement was created to support Saied's action and projects.

He retired in 2018.

He won the second round of the election with 72.71% of the vote, defeating Nabil Karoui, and was sworn in as president on 23 October 2019.

In January 2021, protests began in response to alleged police brutality, economic hardship and the COVID-19 pandemic.

On 25 July 2021, Saied dismissed the parliament and Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, executing a successful self-coup.

Since then, Saied oversaw the dismissal of the judiciary and arrest of politicians.

He ruled by decree until he was successful in passing a new constitution which granted him more powers and called snap legislative elections which resulted in a record low turnout.

Kais Saied is the son of Moncef Saied and Zakia Bellagha from Béni Khiar (Cap Bon).

According to Saied, his late father protected the young Tunisian Jewish Gisèle Halimi from the Nazis.

His mother, although educated, is a housewife.

His family is of rather modest origin but intellectual and a member of the middle class.

Saied was one of the first declared candidates in the 2019 Tunisian presidential election.

Running as an Independent social conservative, he has sought to appeal to younger voters.

One of his policies included support for allowing citizens to recall their elected officials.

Saied suggested to voters that many of Tunisia's current issues were due to "non-respect for many constitutional laws".

He presented a plan to combat corruption, whether it is "moral or financial".

Saied was supported by both Islamists and leftists.

In a June 2019 interview with the newspaper Acharaâ Al Magharibi, Saied announced his support for the death penalty.

He also made statements that public expression of homosexuality is financed and encouraged by foreign countries, telling the paper:

"I was told certain houses were rented by foreign parties... homosexuality has existed throughout history, but certain people want to spread homosexuality."

He has taken conservative positions on women's issues as well, coming out against gender equality in inheritance issues, in accordance with the interpretation of religious law.

Kais Saied is against normalisation of relations with Israel, saying that Israel is at war with the Muslim world, and any Muslim leader who normalizes his or her country's relationship with the Zionists should be tried for treason.

He said his country has no problem with Jews and that Tunisians including his father protected Jews during the Second World War.

Saied has also stated that he is in favor of a decentralised, three-tier, indirect manner of electing national legislative representatives, some elements of direct democracy, and believes that local representatives should be elected based on character and its underlying structure rather than political ideology.

Due to his relative obscurity and lack of campaigning, several of his positions were not well-defined aside from his social conservatism.

Despite being supported by Ennahdha in the election and holding socially conservative positions, Saied did not describe himself as an Islamist and had advisers from across the political spectrum.

He also is not in favor of adding religious elements to the constitution, stating that these were only his personal beliefs.

Several media sources referred to Saied as "RoboCop", given his monotonous voice, his use of Standard Arabic rather than Tunisian dialect, and his focus on law and order issues.

On the campaign trail, Saied portrayed himself as a man of the people, somewhat similarly to Nabil Karoui, another populist candidate.