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The new constitution sparked controversy among activists
Tunisian President Kais Saied said in a statement published by the Tunisian presidency this morning, Tuesday, that “the new constitution expresses the spirit of the revolution and has absolutely no prejudice to rights and freedoms.”
In his justification for the constitutional changes, Saeed referred, in a statement issued by the presidency, to what he described as repeated attempts to undermine the unity of the state and organize within its institutions to deviate from the service of the citizens.
He referred to what he described as “emptying state coffers, spreading corruption and impoverishing citizens.”
He said that freezing the council’s work before its dissolution was “required by the sacred duty and historical responsibility to save state institutions, which were on the verge of collapse.”
The Tunisian president had dissolved the House of Representatives, eight months following suspending its work, and assumed full executive and legislative powers in July 2021.
Before the dissolution of the Council, more than 120 deputies in the Tunisian Parliament, out of 217 deputies, held a meeting via video technology. And 116 deputies voted yes, without restriction or reservation, on a bill that would cancel Said’s exceptional measures.
This meeting was considered a challenge to the Tunisian president, who froze parliament, dismissed the prime minister, and monopolized the authorities in his country on July 25, and since that date he has exercised his powers through presidential decrees and orders.
In response to the concerns over freedoms and civil rights, Saeed said that the House of Representatives and the Council of Regions and Regions constitute sufficient oversight of the text, so there is no fear for freedoms.
In his statement, Saeed responded to what he described as slander and claiming that the new constitution paves the way for the return of tyranny, stressing, according to the statement, that the new constitution also cuts off the path to the dominance of one party, or one coalition, over state institutions.
The Tunisian president called on the people to vote yes on the new draft constitution, and said in his statement: “Say yes so that the state does not fall into old age, and until the goals of the revolution are achieved, there is no misery, no terrorism, no starvation, no injustice, no pain,” as Said put it.
The Tunisian presidency statement is the first response from the president to the criticism leveled at the new draft constitution following it was issued last week.
Under the proposals, drawn up by a committee selected by Saeed, the president would receive sweeping powers.
The supporters of Kais Saied, at the level of the political parties, or on the street level, repeat what the president says, and see that what he did is nothing but a correction to the course of the revolution and in order to save Tunisia.
In a political statement, the Nasserist Unionist People’s Movement said that President Qais Saeed’s decisions are a correction of the course of the revolution, and the party considered that the president did not deviate from his decisions from the constitution, “but acted according to what his responsibility dictated to him, within the framework of the law and the constitution, in order to preserve the integrity of the homeland and the security of country, its independence and ensuring the normal functioning of the state’s wheels.
Opponents accuse Saeed of returning the country to a kind of authoritarian rule, as was the case before the so-called “Arab Spring”.
Saeed has already wielded sweeping powers since he dissolved parliament, in a move his opponents described as a “coup”.
Voters will vote on the proposed constitution in a referendum on 25 July.
In light of the opposition of most political movements to Said’s moves, and urging their supporters to boycott the vote, experts are likely to pass the draft constitution, but with limited popular participation.
Many Tunisians are focusing more on the growing economic crisis, in particular salary delays and the risk of shortages of key subsidized goods.
The electronic “consultation” that Saïd launched from January to March to prepare for the drafting of the constitution received little attention from Tunisians, and very few participated in it.
The opponents of the new constitution proposal believe that Saeed “is not satisfied with being the supreme commander of the armed forces, the general policy officer of the state, the determinant of its basic choices, the one responsible for proposing senior civil and military jobs, and the owner of the right to present bills to Parliament, which must give them priority over It also gives itself the power to appoint representatives of the diplomatic corps abroad.
Some opponents of the constitution protested the use of the term “civil state” in the text of the constitution instead of a “secular state”.
Samir Dilou, Minister of Human Rights and Transitional Justice in the previous government, (and a member of the Ennahda movement) told the BBC, “The principle of Islamic Sharia as a first source of legislation did not exist to be abolished, and that Ennahda considered what was stipulated in Article 1 of the Constitution that Islam is the religion of the state and Arabic Her language is enough.”
Dilo added that “not adopting Islamic Sharia as a source of legislation does not make Tunisia a secular country, and that the consensus was that Tunisia is a civil state as a common reference.”
However, lawyer and activist Radhia Nasraoui told the BBC, “We have waited for the new constitution to focus on the secular state, but the Islamists on the one hand and the lack of awareness in some quarters on the other hand, have entrenched in the minds a wrong meaning of secularism, which is atheism.”
She added, “Tunisia is a civil state in the exercise of its various affairs, but this was not written anywhere, and it is important that this be recorded in the constitution to confirm this nature and protect it.”
Khaled Obeid, a researcher in Tunisian political affairs, told the BBC that “the Islamists tried to pass Sharia as a primary source of legislation, but they failed due to strong opposition from the parties and civil society, so they retreated and were satisfied with the formula of Islam as the religion of the state and not the religion of the people, which includes, according to their reading, Apply the principles of Islamic Sharia.
However, former government spokesman Samir Dilo explained that “the aim was not to present an ideological constitution, but rather to reach a consensus constitution.”
