Nearly 28% of voters, more than expected, voted Monday in Tunisia on a new Constitution, which clearly strengthens the powers of President Kaïs Saïed, with the risk of a return of this country, cradle of the Arab spring, to an authoritarian regime.
“Between 92 and 93%” of voters approved Mr. Saïed’s project, assured AFP the director of the Sigma Conseil polling institute, Hassen Zargouni, on the basis of exit polls.
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. “Kaïs, we sacrifice ourselves for you”, shouted some while singing the national anthem.
As most of the opposition, including the Islamist-inspired party Ennahdha, boycotted the election, the issue was above all turnout, which stood at at least 2.46 million voters and 27.54% of 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, which is facing serious economic difficulties, sharpened by COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine, a country on which it depends for its wheat imports, has been very divided since the president, democratically elected in 2019, seized all the powers a year ago.
Two large blocks voted Yes, said Mr. Zargouni, “the modernist part of the country”, sometimes nostalgic for Ben Ali and the “fan club” of unconditional supporters of Mr. Saïed, especially young people aged 18 to 25.
In the polling stations in Tunis, the crowd was higher than expected, according to AFP journalists.
“We have great hope in July 25. Tunisia will prosper from today,” Imed Hezzi, a 57-year-old waiter, told AFP, showing a finger stained with blue ink, a method used to prevent fraud.
After voting, the president called for his Constitution to be approved to “establish a new Republic based on true freedom, true justice and national dignity”. Ennahdha denounced statements that could guide the vote, which would represent “a fraud in the referendum”.
This controversial new fundamental law, imposed by President Saïed, grants vast powers to the head of state, which is a break 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 Mr. Saïed, and the risk of authoritarian drift of a president who is not accountable to anyone.
Sadok Belaïd, the jurist appointed by Mr. Saïed to draw up the new Constitution, disavowed the final text, believing that it could “open the way to a dictatorial regime”.
The opposition called for a boycott of the ballot, citing an “illegal process” and without consultation.
“No safeguards”
A complex character, President Saïed has exercised power in an increasingly solitary way for the past year.
He considers his overhaul of the Constitution as an extension of the “correction of course” initiated on July 25, 2021 when, citing political and economic blockages, he had dismissed his Prime Minister and frozen Parliament before dissolving it in March, thus putting jeopardize the only democracy born of the Arab Spring.
The new text “gives almost all the powers to the president and dismantles all the systems and institutions that can control him” in addition to establishing “a judicial power subordinate to the executive”, Said Benarbia told Agence France-Presse, regional director of the International Commission of Jurists.
“None of the safeguards that could protect Tunisians from violations similar to the [régime] Ben Ali does not exist”, according to Mr. Benarbia.
For analyst Youssef Cherif, spaces of freedom remain guaranteed, but the question of a return to a dictatorial regime similar to that of the former autocrat of Zine el Abidine Ben Ali could arise “in the post-Kaïs Saied”.
For most of the population, the priority is elsewhere: sluggish growth (around 3%), high unemployment (nearly 40% of young people), galloping inflation and the increase in the number of poor to 4 million people.
Tunisia, on the brink of default with a debt above 100% of GDP, is negotiating a new loan with the IMF, a loan that has a good chance of being granted, but which will require in return sacrifices likely to provoke discontent social.