Tunisia’s constitutional referendum goes ahead with 94.60 support in a vote marked by abstention

July 27 (EUROPA PRESS) –

With 94.60 percent of the votes, the ‘Yes’ to the referendum on the text of the draft Constitution of Tunisia has prevailed over the ‘No’ in a vote marked by a low turnout (28.12 percent), according to the results announced this Tuesday by the Independent Regional Authority for Elections (IRIE).

The head of the High Independent Authority for Elections, Faruk Buasker, announced that the majority of the people who participated in the referendum on the new Tunisian Constitution on July 25 voted in favour, as opposed to the 5.40 percent whose response has been negative, has collected Mosaique FM.

A total of 2.8 million people have gone to the polls, of which 2,608,000 have voted ‘Yes’ to the text in question, compared to 149,000 voters who have voted ‘No’. The number of invalid votes amounts to 56,000, while blank votes reach 17,000.

More than nine million people were called to vote in the referendum, so the participation rate in the referendum was 28.12 percent.

The vote on the new Constitution has been marked by the boycott carried out by parties and organizations of the Tunisian civil society to the referendum, since they have assured that the constitutional text would grant “too many” powers to the head of state.

In addition, during the afternoon of this Tuesday they have described the provisional results published on Monday as a “falsification and manipulation of the figures”.

“By boycotting the referendum, the people refused to participate in the masquerade orchestrated by (President) Kais Saied, who has confiscated power for a year, and who has sought, in vain, legality for a despotic constitution enshrining the absolute personal power,” he said, adding that “the impartiality and integrity of the electoral body” is in doubt, as Kapitalis has collected.

For his part, the head of the High Independent Authority for Elections denied on Monday night, when only the provisional results were available, any type of irregularity in the electoral roll abroad, and accused the complainants of these alleged irregularities of wanting to “create a scandal and try to disrupt the voting process”.

In addition, a few hours after the announcement of the results of the referendum, the president of Tunisia, Kais Saied, went to Habib Bourguiba avenue to take a bath in a crowd. His supporters were already there to celebrate the “Yes” victory.

Saied has taken advantage of the moment to make a speech and threaten to punish those who committed “crimes against the people.” “We will continue together with this strong will to rebuild Tunisia”, she assured, according to the newspaper ‘Business News’.

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.

The new document will replace the Magna Carta approved in 2014 following the 2011 overthrow of the then president, Zine el Abidine ben Ali, within the framework of a massive wave of popular protests in what is known as the ‘Arab Spring’.