THOUSANDS took to the streets of Tunisia on Saturday to protest against the economic crisis that has engulfed the country.

Protesters also slammed the increasingly authoritarian drift of President Kais Saied as they responded to a call from opposition parties to mark 12 years since Tunisian protesters unleashed Arab Spring uprisings around the region.

This comes after disastrous parliamentary elections last month in which just 11 per cent of voters cast ballots.

The elections are meant to replace and reshape a legislature that the president dissolved in 2021. The second round of the elections has been set for January 29.

It also comes as the country is going through a major economic crisis, with inflation and joblessness on the rise.

The march through central Tunis was called for by the National Salvation Front, a coalition of five opposition parties, including the popular Islamist opposition party Ennahdha.

The President of the Tunisian Human Rights League, Bassem Trifi, said authorities banned protesters from other parts of the country from coming to Tunis to take part in the march.

Prominent opposition politician Ahmed Nejib Chebbi said “Tunisia’s salvation can only come through Kais Saied’s departure.”

The head of the Workers’ Party, Hamma Hammami, said “Kais Saied will either end up in prison or flee abroad. His dictatorial regime will fall, like the one of ousted president Ben Ali.”

On January 14 2011, then president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was forced out of power, paving the way for a budding democracy.

In a referendum in July last year, Tunisians voters approved a constitution that hands broad executive powers to the president.

President Saied, who spearheaded the project and wrote the text himself, made full use of the mandate in September, changing the electoral law to diminish the role of political parties.