Tunisia: failure of the national online consultation wanted by President Saïed

Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed, September 20, 2021 in Sidi Bouzid.

AP - Slim Abid

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

The online consultation launched in January and desired by President Kaïs Saïed ended on Sunday 20 March.

For two months, Tunisians were invited to give their opinion on the future of their country.

While the results of the survey are not yet known, some observers are already talking about a failure, because less than 10% of the electorate answered the call.

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With our correspondent in Tunis,

Amira Souilem

The government hoped for three million participants

in the large online consultation

on the future of Tunisia.

They are just over 520,000 to have responded to the call.

Political regime, economic situation or even educational projects, the Tunisians, invited to give their vision of the future of the country, shunned the initiative.

Unrepresentative

In addition to being small, the sample that complied with the exercise is only poorly representative of the population, according to Selim Kharrat, political analyst at the NGO al-Bawsala: " 

The participation rate of women does not exceed 30%, but above all I want to say young people, whose participation rate does not exceed 7.7%.

Knowing that Kaïs Saïed made youth in his speech, the category of the privileged population which would be encouraged to participate in this consultation

.

»

Total Blur

 "

A committee appointed by President Kaïs Saïed must examine the Tunisians' proposals and transform them into recommendations.

And then, wonders Selim Kharrat: " 

For the rest it is total vagueness since there is no legal framework which organizes, for the moment, to date, the referendum which is expected for the month of July.

We do not have an answer as the President has not yet issued the decree to organize the modalities of the next steps of the presidential process

.

»

With the Tunisian Parliament and other institutions

still suspended, Tunisia remains more dependent than ever on the decisions of its president.

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  • Kais Saied