TUNIS: Tunisian police on Saturday arrested political activist Khayam Turki, his lawyer said, noting however that he was not known to be wanted by the authorities.

Turki, 58, had once been considered as a potential candidate to head the government after the resignation of Premier Elyes Fakhfakh in 2020, and belongs to the social democratic Ettakatol party.

The lawyer Abdelaziz Essid said Turki had been arrested early morning by police who stormed his house and searched it.

“He was taken to an unknown destination,” said Essid, adding Turki had not been “facing any legal proceedings” to justify his arrest.

No further details were immediately available.

Ettakatol was allied with the Ennahdha party within the government between 2011 and 2014, before the latter became part of the opposition.

Tunisia has seen a spike in the arrest and prosecution of politicians, journalists and others since President Kais Saied gained wide-ranging powers in a dramatic move against parliament in July 2021.

Since then, Saied’s opponents have accused him of authoritarianism.

Just over 11 percent of Tunisians voted recently in the second round of legislative elections that were seen as the final pillar of Saied’s overhaul of the country’s post-revolution political system.

Dozens of Tunisian civil society organizations, parties and political figures recently voiced their “full support” for the powerful UGTT trade union, accusing President Saied of “targeting” it.

The top UGTT official for highway workers, Anis Kaabi, was arrested on Jan. 31 following a strike by toll barrier workers, in what the union has described as “a blow to union work and a violation of union rights”.

In a joint statement, some 66 signatories expressed their “full support for the UGTT, which has been methodically targeted by the authorities which consider it to be the last obstacle in their way of seizing all powers.”

They slammed “desperate attempts to criminalize union work.”

Signatories included the Tunisian Communist Party, the Tunisian Association for Rights and Freedoms or ADL and key figures such as philosopher and anthropologist Youssef Seddik and activist Bochra Belhaj Hmida.