Agence France-Presse (AFP) said Tuesday that Tunisians voted for a new constitution that would give North African President Qais Said “unlimited powers” and that turnout in the referendum was “low”. because 30.5 percent of the voters agreed with it.
Farouk Bouasker, director of the Tunisian election commission, announced on July 26 that “a draft new constitution for the Republic of Tunisia has been adopted, with a turnout of 30.5 percent, based on the preliminary results of 94.6 percent of the valid votes.”
An exit poll by independent electoral group Sigma Conseil on Monday night predicted that Tunisia’s new constitution would be approved the next day when all the votes were counted.
President Sayed’s political opponents accused the Tunisian election commission, which Said controls, of “fraud” shortly after Monday’s unofficial vote count. Said’s political opponents urged his supporters to boycott the 25 July referendum, which may have contributed to low voter turnout.
An elderly Tunisian came with her husband to vote in a referendum on a draft constitution proposed by the country’s president on July 25, 2022, at a ballot box in the Tunisian capital. (Photo by FETHI BELAID/AFP via Getty images)
AFP on Tuesday said that “although turnout was low, it was higher than many expected”.
Tunisia’s low voter turnout may also be related to its limited history as a democracy. The North African country was ruled by the late Zine al-Abidin Ben Ali from 1987 to 2011, before the pro-democracy movement known as the Arab Spring overthrew the leader in January 2011. Tunisia has been battling other political parties since 2011. and economic fields. .
President Said was elected to this post in 2019. He spearheaded a mass coup in 2021 that overthrew the Tunisian government, suspended its parliament, and made Said the country’s leader by decree.
The new constitution, approved in Monday’s referendum, gives President Said “full control over the executive, the top commander of the military, and the ability to appoint a government without parliamentary approval,” according to the BBC.
“It also weakens the Tunisian judiciary and removes restrictions on the president’s powers,” the British broadcaster said.
Tunisia’s new constitution has been “welcomed” by some citizens who are “tired of high inflation and unemployment, political corruption, and a system they think brings little improvement,” AFP reported.
“Many supported the changes, in the hope that the new constitution would turn a new page, save Tunisia from political divisions and government paralysis, and lessen the influence of the country’s largest Islamist party,” the BBC said.
President Said expressed this sentiment in his speech to his supporters after the polls closed on July 25.
“Tunisia has entered a new phase,” said the leader. “What the Tunisian people are doing is a lesson for the world and a history lesson on the scale on which the lessons of history are measured.”
President Sayed is considered an independent politician in Tunisia. magazine Egypt today Said, a former law professor, was described as “supported by both Islamists and the left” when he was elected President of Tunisia in October 2019, reflecting a socially conservative viewpoint.
Source: Breitbart
