Tunisia facing the risk of a return to an authoritarian regime.
Nearly 28% of voters, a low figure but higher than expected, voted Monday on a controversial new Constitution, which significantly strengthens the powers of President Kais Saied.
“Between 92 and 93%” of voters approved the presidential project assured AFP the director of the polling institute Sigma Conseil, Hassen Zargouni, on the basis of polls taken from the ballot box.
After the announcement of this estimate on national television, in this country where abstention is usually very strong, between 200 and 300 supporters of the president flocked to Bourguiba Avenue in the heart of the capital.
“Kais, we are sacrificing ourselves for you,” some shouted while singing the national anthem.
Boycott of the opposition
Like most of the opposition, whose Islamist-inspired party Ennahdha boycotted the election, the issue was above all the turnout, which stood at at least 2.46 million voters and 27.54% of the 9, 3 million registered, according to the electoral authority Isie.
"The voters were at the rendezvous with history and went in very respectable numbers to the polling stations," commented the president of Isie, Farouk Bouasker.
The voters were above all "the most aggrieved middle classes, adults who feel cheated economically, politically and socially", analyzed the director of Sigma Conseil.
Tunisia, facing an economic crisis, aggravated by the Covid and the war in Ukraine on which it depends for its wheat imports, has been very polarized since the president, democratically elected in 2019, seized all the powers there. one year old.
Two large blocks voted "yes", said Hassen Zargouni, "the modernist part of the country", sometimes nostalgic for Ben Ali and the "fan club" of unconditional supporters of Saied, especially young people aged 18 to 25.
“National Dignity”
After voting in the morning, the president called for approving his Constitution to “establish a new Republic based on true freedom, true justice and national dignity.”
Ennahdha denounced statements that could guide the vote, representing "fraud in the referendum".
This controversial new fundamental law, imposed by President Saied, grants vast powers to the Head of State, breaking with the parliamentary system in place since 2014.
The president appoints the head of government and the ministers and can dismiss them as he sees fit.
He can submit to Parliament legislative texts which have "priority".
A second chamber will represent the regions, as a counterweight to the current Assembly of Representatives (deputies).
The opposition and many NGOs have denounced a Constitution "tailor-made" for Saied, and the risk of authoritarian drift of a president not accountable to anyone.
Sadok Belaïd, the jurist commissioned by Saied to draw up the new Constitution, disavowed the final text, believing that it could “open the way to a dictatorial regime”.
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