Tunisia President Kais Saied celebrates expected referendum win

• Tunisia’s President Kais Saied has won a referendum on a new constitution that gives him nearly unlimited powers.
• An exit poll revealed that more than 90% of those who voted supported his plan.
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• However, turnout was only 27.5%, with the main opposition parties boycotting the election.

President Kais Saied of Tunisia has been celebrating his apparent victory in a referendum on a new constitution that gives him nearly unlimited powers.

Mr Saied appeared in front of ecstatic supporters after an exit poll revealed that more than 90% of those who voted supported the president’s plan.

However, turnout was only 27.5 percent, with the main opposition parties boycotting the election.

Opponents of the president argue that his changes would simply cement the personal powers he seized a year ago.

Mr Saied claimed that if voting had taken place over two days, turnout would have been higher, as reported by the country’s electoral commission.

After a decade of political deadlock, he promised that Tunisia would now enter a new phase. However, his opponents will point to the low turnout as denying legitimacy to what they see as a worrying return to autocracy.

When Tunisia deposed its long-serving ruler Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, it became the birthplace of the Arab Spring.

President Saied chose the referendum date to commemorate a year to the day since his dramatic move to suspend parliament and dismiss the government.

He has effectively ruled by decree since then.

The new constitution, which would replace one drafted three years after the Arab Spring in 2014, would give the head of state full executive control, supreme command of the army, and the power to appoint a government without parliamentary approval.

According to Mr. Saied, it is necessary to break the cycle of political paralysis and economic decay.

He stated that his reforms are being carried out in the spirit of the 2011 revolution and will result in a brighter future.

“Our money and our wealth are enormous, and our will is even greater, to rebuild a new Tunisia and a new republic, one that breaks with the past,” the president said after voting on Monday.