As Tunisia’s President Cements One-Man Rule, Opposition Grows

CAIRO — For the past two months, President Kais Saied of Tunisia has ridden widespread popular support to ever-higher peaks of power, culminating in a recent announcement that he would essentially rule the country by decree. But he has now begun to face growing opposition, heightening uncertainty over Tunisia’s most serious political crisis in a decade as its economy careens toward ruin.

The rebukes have come from staunch opponents and former allies alike, from political parties and from the media, and even from some of the same supporters who cheered in the streets when Mr. Saied froze Parliament, fired the prime minister and seized power on July 25. On Sunday, at least 2,000 protesters in the capital, Tunis, called for Mr. Saied to end what they called his “coup,” the first major demonstration against his actions in two months.

A joint statement from four political parties, including one that was previously close to the president, said Mr. Saied was moving toward dictatorship and called on him to end his “exceptional measures,” which he had promised were temporary.

“We consider the president has lost his legitimacy by violating the Constitution,” the country’s powerful general labor union, U.G.T.T., said in a statement on Friday, warning Mr. Saied against concentrating too much power in his hands without dialogue.

Mr. Saied has thrown the North African country’s democracy, the only one to emerge from the Arab Spring protests that began in Tunisia and swept through the region a decade ago, into ever-deepening doubt.

He said in July that his actions were provisional responses to Tunisia’s economic and health emergencies. But the president has only tightened his grip on power since then, ignoring international and domestic pressure to restore Parliament.

On Wednesday, Mr. Saied’s office announced that he would set up a system under which he would essentially rule the country by decree, bypassing the Constitution. It said he would assume the power to issue “legislative texts” by decree and select the cabinet, even though the Constitution makes Parliament responsible for lawmaking and empowers the prime minister to appoint a cabinet.

As for the Constitution, which Tunisians adopted in 2014 after years of painstaking consultations and negotiations, the announcement said simply that any constitutional provisions that ran counter to Mr. Saied’s new powers were no longer in force. That left in place only the document’s preamble and first two chapters, which deal with Tunisia’s guiding principles and rights and freedoms.

Mr. Saied’s office said he would take charge of drafting political overhauls and constitutional amendments with the help of a committee that he would appoint.

That item in particular drew alarm from U.G.T.T., the labor union, which was part of a quartet of groups that was awarded the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize for captaining a national discussion that helped Tunisia’s fledgling democracy survive a political crisis in 2013.

“The amendment of the Constitution and the electoral law is a matter that concerns all components of society,” the union’s statement read on Friday. It called on Mr. Saied to…