Exactly one year ago, Tunisia’s President Kais Saied reversed the democratic transition in the country and consolidated his power. The politician, who came to power in 2019, deposed the then head of government and initially froze the work of parliament. He later dissolved it entirely. The President also dismissed dozens of judges over alleged corruption.
Now the people are to vote on a new constitution this Monday. The president and former law professor wants to further expand his power at the expense of democratic development. But the support of the more than nine million Tunisians who are eligible to vote for the project is anything but certain. Because the draft of the constitution is controversial.
According to the draft constitution, among other things, the powers of Parliament are to be restricted. The president should therefore be able to appoint and dismiss ministers and heads of government himself. He should also have the power to dissolve Parliament. He could introduce legislative texts in Parliament that would take precedence over other texts. The head of state has already done all this in practice, because he has been governing by decree for months, bypassing the 2014 constitution.
The new draft constitution, on the other hand, no longer provides for an authority that could control the president or even remove him from office. This is reminiscent of the days when Zine El Abidine Ben Ali ruled Tunisia with an iron fist. The autocrat was overthrown in 2011 after mass protests. After that, the North African country was the only one in the region to initiate democratic reforms. The new constitution would undo many of these achievements.
The lawyer Sadok Belaïd, whom the president had entrusted with drafting the constitution, distanced himself from the final version and declared that it “could pave the way for a dictatorial regime”.
In the polling stations in the capital Tunis, there was initially little going on in the morning. A large part of the opposition is calling for an election boycott on Monday because they consider the vote to be illegitimate. So far, however, Saied has not been deterred by the growing criticism in his own country of his going it alone.
The new constitution comes into force with a simple majority for the draft regardless of the turnout. More than nine million Tunisians are called to vote. The polling stations are open until 10:00 p.m. (local time/11:00 p.m. CEST). The first results are expected in the coming days.
The constitutional referendum is now also seen as a decision on his past leadership. Polls indicate low voter turnout. This could give Saied’s critics a boost and weaken its legitimacy – even if, as is likely, votes in favor of the new draft constitution prevail. However, the constitutional decision does not require a minimum participation for it to come into force.
The referendum is not necessarily high on the list of priorities for most Tunisians, according to polls. Many are more worried about the economic upheavals in the country. After the ongoing economic crisis, fueled by the pandemic and recently again by the war in Ukraine, more people are poorer and unemployed than in the days of Ben Ali. Many Tunisians now believe that democracy is unsuitable for overcoming the economic problems. But Saied’s political restructuring has so far not led to an improvement in living conditions. Even the new constitution offers no solutions to the problem.
Many citizens disappointed by politics shared Saied’s uneasiness about the corrupt and often chaotic goings-on in parliament. Instead of worrying about change and progress, many of the parliamentarians regularly got tangled up in sometimes violent arguments.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International warns that the country has made “alarming steps backwards” in human rights since Saied assumed power a year ago. The President sometimes punished political opponents with arrests. Amnesty warns that if the new constitution is adopted, it would further weaken the country’s judiciary and jeopardize human rights. Many Tunisian NGOs have expressed similar concerns.
Amnesty also criticizes the “opaque” draft constitution process. For example, civil society organizations and political parties hardly had a say.