The referendum comes a year to the day after Saied sacked the government and froze parliament in a dramatic power grab, as Tunisia grappled with surging coronavirus cases on top of political and economic crises.
TUNIS - Tunisians vote Monday on a constitution seen as a referendum on President Kais Saied, whose charter would give his office nearly unchecked powers in a break with the country's post-2011 democratic trend.
But after a year of one-man rule in which he has vastly extended his powers and made little progress on tackling deep economic woes, Saied's personal popularity will be under the spotlight."The biggest unknown in this referendum is the turnout and whether it will be low or very low," said analyst Youssef Cherif.
Opposition parties and civil society groups have called for a boycott, while the powerful UGTT trades union has not taken an official stand on the vote. Saied's draft was published earlier this month with little reference to an earlier draft - produced by a committee appointed by the president. Saied released a slightly amended document little more than two weeks before the vote, but even under the new draft, the president would be virtually impossible to force out of office.The draft has been heavily promoted in state media, and billboards bearing the Tunisian flag have appeared exhorting people to vote "yes".Saied, a 64-year-old law professor, won a landslide victory in 2019 presidential elections, building on his image as incorruptible and removed from the political elite.
"Lots of young people, the marginalised and excluded, are on his side," said political analyst Hamadi Redissi.
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