Tunisia's National Salvation Front announced that it would challenge President Kais Saied's decree calling for a referendum on a new constitution for the country, describing the referendum as "null and illegitimate."

The Front said, in a statement issued on Saturday, that it will file a judicial challenge to Order No. 506 related to calling voters to a referendum, as an act that is not constitutionally and legislatively immune from appealing the cancellation.

And it called on what it described as the "de facto authority" to refer to the order calling for the referendum on the grounds that it is illegal and has no legal effect.

The Front called on all political and civil forces to "confront and overthrow the referendum, and work to hold a comprehensive and comprehensive national dialogue to discuss ways to save Tunisia from its worsening political and social crisis."


united front

Last February 18, Ahmed Najib Chebbi, head of the political body of the Hope Party, called during a gathering of political and parliamentary figures organized by the "Citizens Against the Coup" campaign to form a front called "National Salvation".

Five parties joined the front: Ennahda, Qalb Tounes, the Dignity Coalition, the Tunisian Movement of Will and Hope, in addition to the Citizens Against the Coup campaign, and a number of parliamentarians.

On Wednesday, the Tunisian government ratified a presidential order calling for voters to vote on a draft constitution for the republic on July 25.

According to the decree published in the Official Gazette, the new constitution will be prepared and published no later than June 30th.

According to the Official Gazette, the only question in the referendum will be "Do you agree with the new constitution?"

The newspaper stated that the polling will start at 6 am and end at 10 pm local time on July 25.

An advisory committee headed by jurist Sadiq Belaid will propose a new draft constitution.

Last week, President Kais Saied appointed Belaid to head an advisory committee, composed of deans of law and political science, to draft a new constitution for a "new republic", and excluded political parties from restructuring the political system.


Dismantling the 2014 constitution

And the head of the National Salvation Front, Ahmed Najib al-Shabbi, had previously criticized - in an interview with Al Jazeera Net - President Saeed's call for a referendum, and said that this procedure confirms once again that the president "does not listen to anyone, not to his opponents, not even to those who supported him in his approach, and that he is proceeding with his project that It aims to dismantle the political system established by the 2014 constitution, and it is now in the process of adopting a policy of fleeing forward despite the expansion of its internal isolation and the escalation of the scale of popular and political discontent against it.

Chebbi added that Saeed "lost every legal or constitutional justification for his presence at the helm of power after his coup against constitutional legitimacy, and therefore we are in dire need to form an alternative political force because he is currently benefiting from a single matter, which is the internal political vacuum, and on this basis the National Salvation Front, which operates Today, it is necessary to gather and mobilize forces that believe in democracy and the values ​​of the revolution.”

Tunisia has been experiencing, since July 25, a severe political crisis, at which time Said began imposing exceptional measures, including freezing the powers of Parliament, issuing legislation by presidential decrees, dismissing the government and appointing new ones.

Several political and civil forces in Tunisia reject these measures, and consider them a "coup against the constitution", while other forces support them and see them as a "correction of the course of the 2011 revolution," which overthrew then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.