The leader of the Afek Tounes party, Fadel AbdelKefi, said that police stopped him at the Carthage international airport and barred him from leaving without a court order.
The action was taken in the lead-up to legislative elections that Saied’s opponents have criticised as being held in an undemocratic manner, as well as a day after police began looking into a domestic journalist for writing an article critical of the prime minister.
Last year, Saied usurped significant authority, disbanded the elected parliament, and launched a referendum to entrench nearly unchecked presidential power supported by a weak legislature under a new constitution.
Reporters were informed by a representative of the Interior Ministry that a Tunisian court had issued a ruling barring AbdelKefi from traveling, but the ministry was not authorised to take such action on its own.
AbdelKefi told newsmen that he had not been made aware of any judicial decision against him. “Is it reasonable for a decision to be issued without my knowledge?” he said, calling the move a “violation of a basic right”.
Rights organisations have cautioned that Saied’s actions have endangered Tunisia’s democracy as well as the rights and freedoms gained following a 2011 uprising.
Saied, though, has denied having totalitarian aspirations, and there hasn’t been a significant campaign of arrests or a crackdown on dissent.
AbdelKefi has become a well-known opponent of the president’s assumption of most powers in recent months. He claims that the president behaves like a king and hasn’t improved government or revived the economy.
He has also demanded that Saied’s new constitution be repealed in its entirety and that the balance of power between the various parts of government be reinstated.