by Mounira Chrifi
The last hours before the start of the referendum on the new draft constitution in Tunisia seem decisive and decisive.
It is expected that more than nine million registered voters will go to the polling stations to vote “yes” or “no” on a draft new constitution for the country, including more than eight million voters inside Tunisia and nearly 900,000 outside it.
The voting process abroad begins on Saturday and ends on Monday, July 25, which is the day on which the voting takes place at home and coincides with Tunisia’s commemoration of the Republic Day, as well as the first anniversary of the approval of the exceptional measures that allowed President Kais Saied to dismiss the government and freeze Parliament and then finally dissolve it permanently.
While about 160 participants in the campaign for the referendum, including parties, organizations and natural persons, conclude their activities in preparation for the day of silence and then the referendum day, the opposition moves its spectrum again in the street with calls for demonstrations launched by the parties of the national campaign to overthrow the referendum, which brings together the Democratic Current, the Republican Party, the Ettakatol Party and the Labor Party The Qutb Party, as well as the Civil Coalition for a Social Democratic Civil State on the one hand, and the National Salvation Front led by veteran lawyer and politician Ahmed Najib al-Shabbi, and in which ten political components are included, foremost of which is the Ennahda movement on the other.
The various factions of the opposition call for the necessity of boycotting the referendum and rejecting the new draft constitution, as they consider it a perpetuation of the unilateral march of President Kais Saied and the establishment of a new dictatorship, as they described it.
Invitations that President Kais Saied himself responded to in the front line supporting him in a message he published on the official website of the presidency in which he called on Tunisians to vote “yes” for the new draft constitution in order to achieve their demands, fight corruption and rid the state of the control of lobbies.
Despite urging Tunisian voters to go to polling stations on the day of the referendum, President Said rejected many calls to delay the date of the referendum to another date to ensure good turnout.
Political actors and observers expect that the turnout will be modest in view of several factors, the most important of which is the coincidence of the referendum date with the summer vacation and the departure of large numbers of employees on annual vacations, in addition to the high weather.
Warnings of low turnout at polling stations are exacerbated by considering other objective factors, the most important of which is the reluctance of a huge number of Tunisians from political affairs, more than ten years after the 2011 revolution, which left the country in the midst of economic and social crises without seeking solutions by the post-rulers. revolution.
The turnout in the electoral benefits decreased significantly between the 2014 and 2019 elections. Participation in the parliamentary elections, for example, in 2014, amounted to 61.8%, declining to 41.3% in 2019, declaring that Tunisians are dissatisfied with the ongoing political process in their country and a decrease in their confidence in the electoral promises of politicians.
In the same context, observers read indications of turnout for the referendum, while actors in public affairs warn of a hidden desire to deliberately pass the draft constitution despite all these circumstances and constraints.
The first version of the draft constitution proposed by President Kais Saied recognized in the last chapter of it that the constitution enters into force directly as a result of the referendum, which sparked sharp criticism.
To be amended at a later time by acknowledging that the constitution becomes effective after the announcement of the official results of the referendum by the electoral commission.
Observers believe that the new draft constitution will be passed, albeit with a small percentage of the vote.
Meanwhile, the Electoral Commission expressed its hope that the increase in registered voters would lead to a higher turnout.
The Election Commission, in turn, faces a fractured internal situation, as disputes between Commission member Sami Ben Salama and the rest of the members, including its president, escalated into the open.
Where the Board of the Commission assigned the implementation of justice to inspect the posts of Ben Salama published on social networking sites.
The inspection report stated that the commission was accusing Ben Salama of disclosing professional secrets, spreading false news, working outside the commission, and violating the duty of reservation, among 55 charges brought against him by the Election Commission Board.
Sami bin Salama had asked the commission’s council to check the voters’ register and publish the results of the audit urgently, alluding to the presence of complicity in tampering with the electoral register with the aim of harming the course of the referendum.
Kais Saied is silently watching the battle inside the electoral commission, despite receiving a request from its president, Farouk Bouaskar, to relieve Sami bin Salama of his duties.
Kais Saied ‘slack of firm intervention is attributed to his desire not to cause any additional disruption to the commission’s work until the completion of the referendum process in order to protect the entire July 25 process.
In addition, the Tunisian political scene is moving towards multilateral polarization, the main nucleus of which is the position on the procedures of July 25, 2021 between supporters and opponents of them, so that the two fronts are divided against themselves, as the opposition is divided between two main parties, one of whom leads the Ennahda Movement within the Salvation Front and the second leads the Democratic Current and a number of representative social parties Popular Limited.
On the other hand, within the line supporting President Kais Saied, a position appeared that rejects the constitution in its current form and does not hide his opposition to a number of Saeed’s options, and basically he brought all the authorities into his hand and his position on the judiciary.
It is likely that the results of the expected referendum will open a new political scene with different details from the current stage.
