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Tunisia will hold a constitutional referendum for a “new republic” on July 25, President Kais Saied has announced, in defiance of critics who warn he wants to establish an autocracy.<\/p>\n

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The vote will come exactly a year after Saied sacked the government and suspended parliament, moves his rivals called a coup, but which he argues were necessary to resolve a crippling political deadlock.<\/p>\n

Saied has since held a widely boycotted public consultation on a new constitution.<\/p>\n

He has also appointed a body to suggest how responses from the consultation may be fed into the replacement for the constitution adopted after Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, the birthplace of the Arab Spring.<\/p>\n

The draft is to be ready by June 30.<\/p>\n

Late Wednesday, Tunisia’s official journal set the date for a vote on the question: “Do you support the new draft constitution for the Tunisian republic?”<\/p>\n

Saied had in December laid out a roadmap for the July plebiscite and parliamentary elections later in the year, after he dissolved the previous legislature dominated by his arch-enemy, Islamist-inspired Ennahdha.<\/p>\n

The former law professor has long called for a presidential system to replace the hybrid structure outlined in a 2014 constitution, which allowed for repeated conflicts between the executive and legislative branches.<\/p>\n

He has also called for a “national dialogue” but excluded political parties from the process.<\/p>\n

The powerful UGTT trade union confederation has said it will not take part, as the dialogue excludes key political actors and aims to “impose faits accomplis by force”.<\/p>\n

Many Tunisians, tired of a deepening economic crisis, have welcomed Saied’s moves against an unpopular political system they say delivered little.<\/p>\n

But rights groups, political parties and foreign governments have warned of a slide back to dictatorship, a decade after the revolt that overthrew strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tunisia will hold a constitutional referendum for a “new republic” on July 25, President Kais Saied has announced, in defiance of critics who warn he wants to establish an autocracy.   The vote will come exactly a year after Saied sacked the government and suspended parliament, moves his rivals called a coup, but which he argues were necessary to resolve a crippling political deadlock. Saied has since held a widely boycotted public consultation on a new constitution. He has also appointed a body to suggest how responses from the consultation may be fed into the replacement for the constitution adopted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567,562],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news","category-yeswecantv-news"],"yoast_head":"\n