Only 27.54 % of Tunisian voters participated in the ballot, according to provisional figures. The “yes” would prevail, which is not a surprise, the opposition having boycotted the vote.
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Hamza Oueslati has his face tired by scorching heat. Monday July 25 at midday, the 34-year-old daily worker, shorts and tapping, traveled to the polling station of the popular district of Hay Ezzouhour, in Tunis, to accomplish his electoral duty on this day of referendum on the New Tunisian Constitution. “Like every election since the revolution [2011], I don’t want us to choose for me” he says.
A will that most of the Tunisians did not seem to share. With a victory of the yes not being in doubt – due to the boycott of the opposition – most of the issue concerned the participation rate. However, it was weak. At the end of the evening, the independent higher body for the elections (ISIE) announced that at least 2.46 million voters, or 27.54 % of the 9.3 million registered, had participated in the consultation, specifying that these were provisional figures. The “yes” would have collected between 92 and 93 %, according to a survey from the ballot boxes carried out by the Sigma Conseil Institute. It will be necessary to wait this Tuesday that the isie announced its official figures.
fear of an autocratic drift
Earlier in the day, at the denden voting center in Manouba, a suburb of Tunis inhabited by the middle class, Fatma Zahra Mujahidi, a 32 -year -old university teacher, said she came “above all for A change, whether good or bad “. “We must continue as a youngster to participate in the upheavals that affect the country, whether by voting no or yes,” she added. And the authorities had done the necessary to allow this “participation” by opening the polling stations from 6 am to 10 pm, a very long duration with regard to standards in force during the other ballots since 2011.
The issue was none other than the approval or rejection of the Constitution proposed by the President of the Republic, Kaïs Saïed. The text provides for the implementation of a hyperprésidential regime which breaks with the post -2011 political system – predominantly parliamentary – and which raises fears of an autocratic drift. The country had not experienced a constitutional referendum for twenty years. The last dates back to 2002 when the ex-dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali wanted to remove the limit of three presidential terms to be able to stay in power. The “yes” had then collected 99 % of the votes. “We all knew that it was rigged at the time,” recalls Hamza Oueslati. We did not even bother to vote. But there, it’s different. With the choice of today on the Constitution, it is a project that emanates from the will of the people. “During the campaign, many inhabitants of working -class neighborhoods expressed their support for President Kaïs Saïed, in contrast to the massive opposition of the elites.
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