Tunisians have begun voting in a referendum on a new constitution that the president’s critics fear will destroy the democracy that emerged after the 2011 revolution by handing him near-total power.
The vote comes on the first anniversary of the ouster of Qais Syed from the elected parliament, when he installed emergency rule and began to rule according to the decision.
Tunisia’s divided opposition parties called his actions a coup that risks a return to the kind of autocratic rule that characterized Tunisia before the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.
Few people were out on the damp morning streets, but at the Rue Marseilles polling station in central Tunis, Illyes Moujahed was first in line, saying Saied was the country’s only hope.
“I am here to save Tunisia from collapse.” To save it from years of corruption and failure,” he said.
It is unclear when the results will be announced after polls close at 21:00 GMT, but with little apparent enthusiasm for the vote among most Tunisians and a boycott by the main parties, analysts expect a yes vote on low turnout .
Standing outside a cafe in central Tunis, Samir Slimane said he was not interested in voting. “I have no hope of change. Kais Saied won’t change anything. He only seeks to have all the powers,” he said.
Under Syed’s own rules for the referendum, no minimum level of participation among the 9.2 million registered voters is needed to approve the new constitution. He only specified that the constitution would come into force after the final results were announced, and did not say what would happen if voters rejected it.
Sayed welcomed the establishment of a new Tunisian republic to end years of political sclerosis and economic stagnation.
However, while almost all major political parties and civil society organizations denounced his unilateral approach to rewriting the constitution and the legitimacy of the referendum, they failed to form a united front.
The divide was visible in the anti-Syed protests in recent days. The Islamist Ennahda party, the largest in parliament, took part in a protest on Saturday. Civic organizations and smaller parties held one on Friday. A party that supported the autocracy before the revolution held its own on both days.
The protests drew relatively small numbers, but rallies organized by Syed’s supporters were also modestly attended and there were no signs of excitement around the campaign. Most Tunisians seem more focused on the struggling economy and rising prices.
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The economic downturn since 2011 has left many people angry at the parties that ruled after the revolution and disillusioned with the political system they ran.
“I don’t support Sayed, but I will vote yes in the referendum because those who protest against him are the main cause of our problems in the last decade,” said Mohammed, a resident of Tripoli.
Of the three parliamentary and two presidential elections since the revolution, the lowest voter turnout of 41% was in 2019 for the chamber Sayed dissolved.
A turnout on Monday that is far below that level would further question the legitimacy of Sayed’s new constitution and his project to reshape Tunisian politics.
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