Tunisian President Kais Saied affirmed his rejection of any form of interference in his country's internal affairs, and this came after several Western countries expressed their concerns about the fate of Tunisian democracy, the latest of which was the statement of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who called for comprehensive and transparent reform in Tunisia. The US foreign opposition by exploiting what it described as a farce of the constitutional referendum to interfere in the country, and blamed President Saeed for the exacerbation of foreign interference.

In his meeting with Foreign Minister Othman Al-Grandi today, Friday, President Said stressed that Tunisia is a free, independent and sovereign state, and that its sovereignty and independence are above all considerations, as he put it. ".

Last Tuesday, the head of the Electoral Commission, Farouk Bouaskar, said that the draft constitution had the confidence of 94.60% of the votes of 2,630,944 voters out of 9,278,541 voters (30.5% of those who registered).

The referendum is a link in a series of exceptional measures that President Qais Saeed began to impose on July 25, 2021, including dismissing the government, appointing another, dissolving the Judicial Council and Parliament, issuing legislation by presidential decrees, and early parliamentary elections to December 17.

Several major Tunisian political forces rejected the results of the referendum - such as the National Salvation Front, the Ennahda Movement and the National Campaign to Overthrow the Referendum (a coalition of 5 leftist parties) - on the grounds that 75% of the Tunisian people did not participate in the referendum on the new constitution.

The US Secretary of State called for comprehensive and transparent reform in Tunisia to restore the confidence of those who did not participate in the constitutional referendum.

Blinken emphasized that his country shares the concerns of many Tunisians that the process of drafting the new constitution has limited the scope for real debate.


accusations and impotence

In turn, the opposition Labor Party in Tunisia accused the US State Department of exploiting what it described as the farce of the failed referendum, to resume its blatant interference in Tunisia's affairs, as he put it.

The Labor Party held President Said responsible for the exacerbation of foreign interference in Tunisia and the exacerbation of manifestations of normalization, he said. The party also accused Said of failing to respond to the American and European interventions, which he described as scandalous.

On the other hand, the Popular Current Party (a nationalist supporter of President Kais Saied) expressed its rejection of what was stated in the US State Department's statement regarding the referendum on the new constitution, and considered it a blatant attack on the will and sovereignty of the Tunisian people, as he put it.

The party said - in a statement - that the US intervention reaffirms the aggressive approach of the US administration, and shows that the US administration's hostility and rejection of the July 25 track is an insistence on implementing the agenda of fragmenting the state through the rule of its agents, led by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Takfiri groups and the rest of the neoliberal savage groups. According to the statement.

The statement considered that the main goal of the US administration in Tunisia is to continue blackmailing the state and dragging it into the square of normalization with the enemy.


Appealing the results of the referendum

Meanwhile, the Tunisian "I Watch" organization announced that it had filed an appeal with the Administrative Court in order to annul the results of the referendum on the draft constitution announced this week.

The organization indicated in a short post on its Facebook page that the appeal was submitted to the Administrative Court in the capital, Tunis, on behalf of one of the natural persons who applied for a permit to participate in the referendum campaign.

The Afaq Tounes party also announced that it would challenge the preliminary results of the referendum on the new constitution due to the serious excesses of the electoral process, while the Popular Current party expressed its rejection of the American statements that criticized the low rate of participation in the referendum.

The Afaq Tounes party - in a statement - rejected the results of the referendum because of what it described as the confusion of the decisions of the body supervising the elections from the beginning of the referendum process until the moment the results were announced, as he put it.

The party expressed its rejection of the various positions and statements that try to harm the unity of the country and the state and try to divide it and dismantle its institutions, calling on everyone to stop rhetoric of sedition, hatred and populism, according to the statement.

It is noteworthy that the deadline for appealing the preliminary results of the referendum ends Friday evening.

The spokesman for the Administrative Court, Imad Al-Ghabri, had confirmed that the electoral law grants only the participants in the referendum campaign the right to challenge its results, and prevents it from the boycotting parties, adding that if the Administrative Court receives appeals, the total period for consideration in the primary and appellate litigation phases is 30 days.