TUNIS —
Hundreds demonstrated on Sunday in Tunisia’s capital against a planned
referendum on constitutional changes and
President Kais Saied’s recent firing
of dozens of judges.
اضافة اعلان
Protesters in
Tunis responded to calls from opposition organizations, including Saied’s
nemesis the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party, chanting “constitution, liberty,
and dignity” and “the people want an independent judiciary”, an AFP
correspondent said.
The new
constitution is the centerpiece of reform plans by Saied and is set to go to
referendum on July 25, exactly one year after he sacked the government and
suspended parliament.
He has steadily
extended his power grab since then, including by dissolving parliament in
March. Earlier this month he sacked 57 judges, after accusing many of
corruption and other crimes.
“The referendum
is just nothing but a fraud,” said Ali Larayedh, a leader from Ennahdha, which
was parliament’s biggest party and a key player in the government fired by the
president.
“We are
demonstrating against the exclusion of the judicial authority and against the
coup d’état that targets the constitution,” he said.
The 2014
constitution, a hard-won compromise between Ennahdha and its secular rivals,
created a system where both the president and parliament had executive powers.
It was adopted
three years after the North African country’s 2011 revolution.
Rights groups
have condemned Saied’s firing earlier this month of the 57 judges as a “deep
blow to judicial independence”.
Saied is a
former law professor elected in 2019 amid public anger against the political
class in the North African nation.
He has organized
a “national dialogue” around the constitutional reforms, but opponents
including the powerful
UGTT trade union confederation have boycotted it, on the
grounds that it excludes key civil society actors and political parties.
A draft of the
new constitution is due to be presented to Saied on Monday ahead of a
referendum in the form of a simple yes or no vote.
Ennahdha warned
earlier this month against dropping references to Islam in any new
constitution.
Sunday’s protest
came just days after flights were canceled, public transport ground to a halt
and government offices were closed in a nationwide strike by the UGTT that
piled more pressure on the president.
The
confederation had urged workers across the North African country’s vast public
sector to strike, halting work at 159 state agencies and public companies to
demand concessions on salaries and threatened reforms.
In February, the
president scrapped an independent judicial watchdog and replaced it with a body
under his own control.
Saied’s
opponents accuse him of moving the only democracy to have emerged from the Arab
Spring uprisings back towards autocracy.
Some
Tunisians
however support his moves against a system they say achieved little in the
decade since the 2011 revolt that toppled dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.
Legislative
elections are planned for December.
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