Summary:

On 24 September 2023, President Kais Saied visited a Carrefour store in Tunis where he reviewed the prices of goods, highlighting rising prices.

President Saied made statements indicating that he is not against businessmen, but also called on Tunisian businessmen to do their “national duty” as inflation and the costs of goods continue to rise. The President stated that some unnamed businessmen are accumulating wealth while some Tunisians are dying of hunger.

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Minister of the Interior Kamel Feki accompanied President Saied on the trip, that included stops in downtown Tunis and in Rades.

President Saied’s comments at Carrefour follow his mid-September call for review of the “Pandora Papers” – or “Panama Papers” – issue. The issue of prominent Tunisian businessmen leveraging tax havens has emerged again following a series of publications over the last several years by inkyfada.

Outlook:  

As pressure grows on the economy, the current administration has taken a skeptical stance toward free markets and the businessmen profiting from them.

This rhetoric has broad appeal among working class Tunisians who are frustrated by rising prices in stores and markets and eager for the interventionist Tunisian economic system to maintain the prices of basic goods to which consumers are accustomed.

Such rhetoric risks further alienation of the Tunisian economy that continues to struggle to attract and sustain foreign investment due to both economic and political conditions.

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