Saied denounces that “desperation has been sown in the people so that they move away from public affairs”
July 25 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of Tunisia, Kais Saied, went this Monday with the first lady, Ichraf Saied, to vote in a controversial constitutional referendum promoted by the president, marked by the call for a boycott by the opposition.
The president, who has voted in Ariana, has delivered a speech in which he has accused “some actors” of trying to sabotage the referendum by causing fires in the country, despite the obligation not to make statements during voting day.
“The people are called to vote to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, after on July 25, 2021 the people were happy with the suspension of Parliament, given that we began a new historical stage to build together the ‘New Republic ‘, based on true freedom, justice and national dignity,” he said.
Saied has thus made reference to his decision to suspend Parliament -later dissolved- and dissolve the Government of Prime Minister, Hichem Mechichi, to assume all powers, which led the opposition to denounce an “institutional coup d’état” and an authoritarian drift of the president.
Thus, the Tunisian president has denounced that “desperation has been sown in the people so that they move away from public affairs”. “These conspiracies have been going on since January 2011,” he has pointed out, referring to the popular revolution that overthrew Zine el Abidine ben Ali during the ‘Arab Spring’.
“We are facing a historic election and the people must not miss this date with history and not give in to those who set fire to the forests and pay citizens not to vote* They are not from this town, they are not from this country, they have betrayed it and sold it to foreigners,” he added.
“We want to live in a free and sovereign country in which the citizen is free and freedom is not only in the articles of laws or constitutions, but is a true daily practice,” Saied argued, as reported by the newspaper ‘BusinessNews’.
For this reason, he has defended that “it is important that the person in charge of this constitutional project is responsible before his voters and not before the party that proposed him as a candidate. We have lived through many farces and comedies during these unfortunate recent years,” he has settled.
The spokesman for the Independent Higher Institution for Elections (ISIE), Mohamed Tlili Mansri, stressed that the president’s statements will be analyzed.
For her part, the Tunisian Prime Minister, Najla Buden Romdhane, went to vote in Berges du Lac, where she left without making a statement, as reported by the Tunisian radio station Mosaique FM.
The draft of the Magna Carta brings together most of the powers around the Presidency and reduces the power of Parliament, suspended in July 2021 –and later dissolved–, the date on which Saied dissolved the Government and arrogated all the competencies.
If approved in a referendum, the document will replace the Magna Carta approved in 2014 following the overthrow in 2011 of the then president, Zine el Abidine ben Ali, within the framework of a massive wave of popular protests in what is known as ‘Spring Arab’.
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