Polling offices in Tunisia closed on Monday evening and counting operations began in more than 11,000 polling stations out of the country's total polling stations, while organizations and parties denounced irregularities during the voting operations.

The polling stations had begun at eight in the morning local time to receive voters to cast their votes in the referendum on the new draft constitution.

The Independent High Authority for Elections said that the turnout in the referendum exceeds 27% until the polls close, adding that the percentage is not final.

Tunisian President Kais Saied presented the new draft constitution as an alternative to the 2014 constitution as part of a road map he announced last July that ends with legislative elections next December.

Tunisians abroad participated in the polls, starting last Saturday, with a turnout of 6.5%, according to the electoral commission.

The voting process took place amid calls from opposition parties to boycott, led by the National Salvation Front and the national campaign to drop the referendum, while other parties called to participate and vote against it.

Limited turnout

Earlier on Monday, the head of the Independent High Authority for Elections, Farouk Bouaskar, announced that the turnout in the referendum had risen to 21.85% as of 19:00 local time (18:00 GMT).

According to Bouaskar, the number of voters inside Tunisia is 8,929,665, divided into 51% for females and 49% for males.

In a speech broadcast on public television in Tunisia, Tunisian President Kais Saied accused unnamed parties of trying to thwart the referendum, calling on voters to "not respond to those who tempt them with money."

Said said that these parties are working to prevent Tunisian citizens from participating in the referendum and to obstruct their will to build a new republic, as he put it.

Commenting on this, the Independent High Authority for Audiovisual Communication in Tunisia, known for its acronym "HAICA", said that the program broadcast on Tunisian state television, which included a 15-minute speech by President Kais Saied, had some forms of propaganda for the draft constitution.

The commission added that this is a violation of Chapter 69 of the Elections and Referendum Law.

She also wrote a letter to the State Television Corporation regarding what it described as a violation of propaganda during the electoral silence period.


5 parties

In turn, five Tunisian parties said that President Kais Saied had violated the electoral silence.

She criticized the president's approach on state television with a speech she described as propaganda in favor of the draft constitution that is being submitted to a referendum.

The parties added, in a statement, that the commission's silence on what the president had done was evidence of its lack of independence and the fraud of the electoral process.

The five parties that issued the statement are the Ettakatol Party, the Republican Party, the Labor Party, the Democratic Current Party and the Qutb Party.

For its part, the Ennahda movement expressed its astonishment at what it called the silence of the electoral authority officials over what it described as a documented electoral crime, which doubles the doubt about its credibility.

On what was considered a violation of the electoral silence by the Tunisian President in a speech he delivered at a polling station on Monday morning after casting his vote, the spokesman of the Independent High Authority for Elections in Tunisia, Mohamed Al-Tilili Al-Mansri, said that the authority will look into all statements and abuses, regardless of their source, without any embarrassment.

Al-Mansri added that the electoral law applies to everyone, and that the commission works under the supervision of the Administrative Court.

The Tunisian President casting his vote (European)

Journalists Syndicate

For its part, the National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists called on the Independent High Authority for Elections to intervene, and the Ministry of the Interior not to place illegal obstacles to the work of journalists.

The union said in a statement that it recorded security restrictions and harassment of Tunisian and foreign journalists while covering the vote on the new constitution.

The union reported that some polling station chiefs prevented Tunisian and foreign journalists from filming inside the polling stations, which hindered their work.

The Syndicate recorded the reluctance of some heads of subsidiary bodies to provide journalists with information about the progress of the referendum process and the data associated with it.

And the Journalists Syndicate expressed its fear that cases of banning filming inside the voting offices will become a systematic behavior by the heads of the centers.


civic organizations

Several civil organizations concerned with monitoring the elections had recorded observations regarding the progress of the voting process on the new draft constitution.

The "Monitors" network said that 91 polling stations did not record the presence of any representative of the parties participating in the campaign, and that about 9% of the polling stations delayed their opening than the specified date.

For its part, the Tunisian Association for the Integrity and Democracy of Elections, "Atid", announced that a number of observers were prevented from carrying out their mission to monitor the progress of the referendum process.

The association demanded that the election commission intervene quickly and circulate information about the certificates to its officials and allow them to perform their oversight role.

Atid Association confirmed a delay in the start of the polling process in more than one center, in addition to restricting a number of its observers by preventing them from moving between stations.

American Comments

Meanwhile, the US State Department said that Washington is awaiting the official results of the referendum that will be announced by the electoral commission, adding that it is up to Tunisians to decide their political future.

The State Department added that the United States will continue to stand with the Tunisian people in their demand for a return to democratic rule that respects human rights.