Tunisia’s Ennahda rejects formation of advisory committee to draft new constitution

Tunisia’s main opposition party, the Islamist Ennahda, rejected on Sunday President Kais Saied’s decision to name members of an advisory committee to draft a new constitution for a “new republic”, it said in a statement.

It added that this measure was “a complete deviation from constitutional legitimacy”.

On Friday, Saied named a law professor to head the advisory committee that will draft a new constitution. The committee headed by law professor Sadok Belaid consists of deans of Law and Political Sciences. It must submit its report on June 20 to the president, the official gazette said.

On Friday, President Kais Saied named a law professor to head an advisory committee of legal and political science experts to draft the new constitution for a “new republic”, excluding political parties from the process.

The National Salvation Front, an umbrella for several parties and activists including Ennahda, Heart of Tunisia, Karama and the Citizens Against the Coup coalition, decried the move as another dangerous step towards entrenching one-man rule.

Saied denies his opponents’ accusations that he staged a coup to seize power, saying his intervention was legal and necessary to save Tunisia from years of political paralysis and economic stagnation at the hands of a corrupt, self-serving elite who had taken control of government.

The Free Constitutional Party, whose leader Abir Moussi is a supporter of the late autocratic president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and a bitter foe of Ennahda, also rejected the move to exclude parties from the drafting of a new constitution and other reforms. It called for a mass protest on June 18.

“What is happening is a dictatorship but we will not leave Tunisia hostage in Saied hands,” Moussi said.

In a joint statement, the Attayar, Republican and Ettakatol parties called on parties, civil society and national leaders to confront “this farce and overthrow the coup”.