TUNIS: A legal expert charged with writing a new constitution presented a draft to Tunisian President Kais Saied Monday, less than a month before a referendum on the document.
The planned referendum is set for July 25, the one year anniversary of a power grab by Saied that saw him sack the government and suspend an elected parliament.
Sadeq Belaid, the legal expert appointed to head a committee drafting the new document, handed the draft to the president at his palace in the coastal Tunis district of Carthage.
“We hope (it) will satisfy the president,” Belaid said in a video published by the presidency following their meeting.
In a statement, Saied said the draft “is not final, and some sections may be revised or given further thought.”
Under his own timeline, Saied has until June 30 to approve or edit the draft constitution, which has not yet been disclosed in any form to the public.
The constitution for a “new republic” is at the center of Saied’s program for rebuilding Tunisia’s political system, more than a decade after the revolution that sparked the Arab Spring uprisings.
Saied this year consolidated his power grab by dissolving parliament, moving to rule by decree and seizing control of the judiciary.
His moves have been welcomed by some Tunisians tired of their dysfunctional post-revolution democracy, but others have warned he is returning the country to autocracy, little more than a decade after the ouster of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Saied wants to replace the current constitution, the product of a hard-won 2014 compromise between bitter political rivals that enshrined a mixed parliamentary-presidential system that often produced deadlock.
Tunisian Bar president Ibrahim Bouderbala, who headed a committee taking part in Saied’s “national dialogue” over the constitution, told AFP that under the draft, “the president of the republic will control the executive.”
The draft also “takes particular interest in economic questions,” he said.
Belaid had told AFP in an interview earlier this month that he would remove all reference to Islam from the new document in order to challenge Islamist parties, a reference to Ennahdha, which has dominated Tunisian politics since 2011.
Tunisia president receives draft constitution
https://arab.news/gz38z
Tunisia president receives draft constitution
- The new constitution is the centrepiece of reform plans by Saied which is set to go to referendum on July 25
UN humanitarian chief’s fresh funding call as Sudan crisis passes 1,000 days amid famine, mass displacement
- ‘Today we are signaling that the international community will work together to bring this suffering to an end,’ Tom Fletcher tells fundraising event in Washington
- Sudan is a central pillar of the UN’s global humanitarian plan for 2026, which aims to save 87m lives worldwide, he adds
NEW YORK CITY: The UN on Tuesday launched a renewed appeal for funding and the political backing to address what it described as the catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Sudan, which has now been locked in civil war for more than 1,000 days.
Speaking at a fundraising event for Sudan in Washington, organized by the US Institute for Peace, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Tom Fletcher, said the scale of the suffering in Sudan had reached intolerable levels marked by famine, mass displacement and widespread sexual violence against women and girls.
“The horrific humanitarian crisis in Sudan has endured more than 1,000 days — too long,” he said. “Too many days of famine, of brutal atrocities, of lives uprooted and destroyed.”
The global community was now united in its desire to halt the suffering and ensure life-saving aid reaches those most in need, Fletcher said.
“Today we are signaling that the international community will work together to bring this suffering to an end,” he added.
Sudan is a central pillar of the UN’s global humanitarian plan for 2026, which aims to save 87 million lives worldwide, Fletcher explained as he thanked donors, including the US, the EU and the UAE, for stepping forward.
“Sudan is the most important component of that plan,” he said, noting that humanitarian operations there have been chronically underfunded and plagued by danger. “We have lost hundreds of colleagues in Sudan, colleagues of incredible courage.”
The UN plans to provide food, medicine, water and sanitation services to more than 14 million people across Sudan this year, as well as protection for vulnerable groups, Fletcher said.
He stressed that funding alone would not be sufficient, however, and called for stronger measures to protect civilians and aid workers, secure humanitarian access and support a temporary truce between the warring factions.
“The money is not enough,” he said. “We need the air assets, the security, the medical support for our teams, and the mediation work that has to underpin the access.”
The UN will work, through the Sudan Humanitarian Initiative, with the so-called “Quad” group of international partners (the US, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) and others to identify priority areas for urgent action and remove obstacles to the delivery of aid, Fletcher said.
He added that the UN seeks visible progress toward a humanitarian truce in Sudan within the next few weeks, and called for those guilty of any violations in the country to be held accountable.
“We have set a target date of the beginning of Ramadan to make visible progress on this work,” Fletcher said. Ramadan is expected to begin on or around Feb. 17 this year.
Quoting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, he added that the urgency of ending the conflict was growing as the third anniversary of its outbreak on April 15, 2023, approaches.
“The guns must fall silent and a path to peace must be charted,” Fletcher said, adding that the UN fully supports efforts to secure a humanitarian truce and rapidly scale up aid across Sudan.
“Today, we’re saying, ‘Enough.’ Let today be the signal that the world is uniting in solidarity for practical impact.”
