Tunisia president submits draft elections decree to voting body

Tunisia’s Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE) announced yesterday that it had received a “draft decree that regulates the legislative elections” from the president.

ISIE spokesperson, Mohamed Mansri, told the official Tunisian News Agency that “the ISIE Board is studying the draft since ISIE is a consultative body.”

He stated that the ISIE “will submit to the Presidency of the Republic before the end of this week all the legal, functional and technical proposals of the draft presidential decree regulating the legislative elections.”

According to a roadmap previously announced by President Kais Saied, legislative elections are expected to be held on 17 December.

Since 25 July, 2021, Tunisia has witnessed a severe political crisis when Saied imposed exceptional measures, including dismissing the government and appointing a new one, dissolving parliament and the Supreme Judicial Council and issuing legislation by presidential decrees.

Tunisian forces consider these measures as a “coup against the constitution”, while others see them as “a correction of the course of the 2011 revolution.” Saied, who began a five-year presidential term in 2019, says he took the measures “under the provisions of the constitution to protect the state from an imminent danger.”

READ: Tunisia’s National Salvation Front announces boycott of the December elections