Tunisians permitted a brand new Constitution that cements the one-man rule instituted by President Kais Saied over the previous 12 months, in line with the outcomes of a referendum launched on Tuesday, dealing a physique blow to a democracy constructed with immense effort and excessive hopes after the overthrow of the nation’s dictator greater than a decade in the past.
Tunisia, the place the Arab Spring uprisings started in 2011, was internationally lauded as the one democracy to outlive the revolts that swept the area. But that chapter successfully ended with the passage of the brand new constitution, which enshrines the just about absolute energy that Mr. Saied conferred on himself a 12 months in the past when he suspended Parliament and fired his prime minister.
Still the referendum on Monday was undercut by mass boycotts, voter apathy and a setup closely tilted towards Mr. Saied. The Constitution was permitted by 94.6 p.c of voters, in line with the outcomes launched by the electoral authority.
“The masses that came out today across the country show the significance of this moment,” Mr. Saied mentioned in an handle to cheering supporters in downtown Tunis a number of hours after the polls closed. “Today marks a new chapter of hope and turning the page on poverty, despair and injustice.”
In his remarks, Mr. Saied denied any tendency towards authoritarianism. But the brand new Constitution will return Tunisia to a presidential system just like the one it had underneath Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the authoritarian ruler toppled within the so-called Jasmine Revolution of 2011. It additionally weakens Parliament and most different checks on the president’s energy whereas giving the pinnacle of state the final word authority to type a authorities, appoint judges and current legal guidelines.
It preserves a lot of the 2014 Constitution’s clauses regarding rights and liberties. But in distinction to the earlier Constitution, which divides energy between Parliament and the president, the brand new one demotes the legislature and the judiciary to one thing extra akin to civil servants, granting the president alone the authority to nominate authorities ministers and judges and weakening Parliament’s means to withdraw confidence from the federal government.
Capping years of political paralysis, the referendum might spell the top of a younger democracy that many Tunisians had come to view as corrupt and woefully insufficient at guaranteeing bread, freedom and dignity — the beliefs they chanted for in 2011.
But with turnout low at about 30 p.c and most main political events boycotting the vote to keep away from lending it better legitimacy, Mr. Saied now stands on slippery floor, his means to hold out additional reforms in query.
The State Department spokesman, Ned Price, famous the low turnout within the referendum and concern amongst civil society teams in regards to the course of, together with “the lack of an inclusive and transparent process and limited scope for genuine public debate during the drafting of the new constitution.”
“We also note concerns that the new constitution includes weakened checks and balances that could compromise the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms,” Mr. Price mentioned at a every day press briefing.
The incapability of the democratic system to ship good jobs and put meals on the desk, clear up widespread corruption or produce much-needed reforms pushed many Tunisians to look to Mr. Saied for a rescue. The former constitutional regulation professor was elected to the presidency in 2019 largely as a result of he was a political outsider.
By 2021, two-thirds of Tunisians related democracy with instability, indecision and a weak financial system, in line with an Arab Barometer survey.
When Mr. Saied seized energy a 12 months in the past, celebrations erupted within the streets of the capital, Tunis. Polls confirmed an awesome majority of Tunisians supported his actions, whilst opponents and analysts referred to as them a coup. But he declared his energy seize obligatory to meet the long-unmet objectives of the revolution and rid the nation of corruption.
“If you tell me about democracy or human rights and all that stuff, we haven’t seen any of it in the last 10 years,” mentioned Rafaa Baouindi, 50, a financial institution worker who forged a “yes” vote in downtown Tunis on Monday. “What is happening today, I call it a new era, in a good sense. It can’t be worse than it was over the last decade.”
He mentioned he didn’t thoughts the Constitution’s focus of powers within the arms of the president. “A boat needs one captain,” he mentioned. “Personally, I need one captain.”
For supporters, an added spur to voting for Mr. Saied’s new Constitution was the dread that Ennahda, the Islamist political social gathering that dominated Parliament earlier than Mr. Saied dissolved it, would return to energy. Mr. Saied and his backers stoked that longstanding worry amongst secular Tunisians through the lead-up to the referendum.
The low turnout, nevertheless, displays the weakening of Mr. Saied’s well-liked help over the past 12 months, because the financial system declined, corruption flourished and the president grew more and more authoritarian.
Tunisians questioned his focus above all else on placing a brand new Constitution in place and making different political reforms at a time when the federal government was struggling to pay wages, the costs of bread and different staples have been hovering on account of the warfare in Ukraine, and respectable jobs nonetheless appeared far out of attain for a lot of Tunisians.
Mr. Saied misplaced extra help when he began to rule nearly completely by decree, jailing opponents and critics and utilizing army courts to strive them, putting restrictions on the information media and seizing management of previously unbiased our bodies such because the nation’s high judicial oversight council and the elections authority.
Souring on his one-man rule, all however about half one million Tunisians ignored Mr. Saied’s calls to take part in an internet survey in regards to the nation’s future. But the opposition remained fragmented, and failed to supply credible alternate options to Tunisians with misgivings about Mr. Saied.
Still, the passage of the referendum — if on no account the resounding victory Mr. Saied may need hoped for — was broadly anticipated. Mr. Saied appointed the board of the previously unbiased elections authority in addition to the committee that drafted the brand new Constitution, and no minimal participation was required for the referendum to cross.
Those who campaigned in opposition to the proposal mentioned the complete course of was tilted towards the “yes” aspect, with authorities ministers calling for Tunisians to help the brand new Constitution and state-funded media largely that includes pro-Saied voices.
Massinissa Benlakehal contributed reporting from Tunis, Tunisia.