Tunisia: President Extends Parliament’s Suspension

Tunisians wishing to serve their country through the Parliament will have to wait for another 12 months following the decision by President Kais Saied to call for new elections on 17 December 2022. Speaking during a nationwide address on Monday December 13, 2021, the Tunisian President announced the holding of “popular consultations” with the Tunisian people, putting in place of a “draft constitution and other amendments” that will be put forward to referendum on 25 July 2022.”

He added that changes to the constitution would follow a public online consultations starting in January 1, until March 20, 2022 during which suggestions for constitutional and other reforms would be gathered. A committee will then examine them until June, ahead of the referendum on the day the Tunisian Republic was declared after independence from France.

Prior to the address on State television, President Saied told his cabinet that constitutions are “not eternal, the people exercises its sovereignty in the framework of the constitution. If it's not possible for the sovereign people to practise its rights in the framework of a text, then there needs to be a new text,” he reiterated.

The 2014 constitution, which put in place a hybrid presidential-parliamentary system, was seen as a compromise between powerful Islamist-inspired party Ennahdha and its secular rivals. But many Tunisians see the political system it created as having failed, creating corruption and endless blockages without resolving deep social and economic problems.