Tunis - The president of Tunisia, Kais Saied, plans for a referendum to replace the constitution of 2014.
Despite the local outrage and the international opposition to Tunisia's current state, Saied remains tenacious against what his opponents deplore as a “coup”. The president insists on the cancellation of the 2014 constitution, upon which his election was based.
July 25 - Saied abolished the government and suspended the representative assembly, which sparked national outrage, as the dissolution of the legislative parliament forebodes the end of democracy and the beginning of tyrannical sovereignty.
Five parties decided to launch a campaign in a quest to abrogate the presidential referendum calling for Tunisian citizens to boycott, and large protests broke out last Saturday as a repudiation of Saied's new decision.
The draft of the new constitution has not yet been revealed to the public. However, Sadeq Belaid, recently appointed as the head of the President’s National Consultative Commission for the New Republic, announced that the draft will be available by 15 June. “The draft will wipe any Islamic reference,” he said.
Last Wednesday, amid the political crisis, Kais Saied dismissed 57 judges from their positions, charging them with “committing financial and moral corruption,” according to the MiddleEastMonitor.
According to the Tunisian Judges Association, more than 1500 judges and judicial staff suspended their work and declared their support for the strikes abhorring the president’s decision.
The journalist Khawla Boukrim condemned the president’s decision to dismiss the judges and denounced his accusation of a female judge for committing “adultery”. “If a president’s legitimacy derives from the defamation of women’s reputation by imputing unchastity to her, he is certainly an illegitimate ruler."
According to the Middle East Monitor, The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) claimed that Saied’s decision is “a threat to freedom and new rule of law in Tunisia.”
Last Wednesday, Judge Aisha Ben Hassan, vice-president of the Tunisian Judges Associations firmly asserted that “the judges are persistent, and they won’t be under the rule of any executive authority.”
To tighten his grip on power, Kaies ordered the judges’ salaries to be cut off in retaliation to the week-long strikes. However, he was met with persistent resilience from the judges, “the system of threatening will not dissuade us or propel us to compromise.”
His presidential order was repudiated by the judges, Tunisian unions, and political parties, which led to open strikes and sit-ins.
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