Tunisians firmly backed new constitution: final results

Tunisians firmly backed new constitution: final results
Sadok Belaid, head of Tunisia’s constitution committee, submitting a draft of the new constitution to President Kais Saied at the Carthage Palace in Tunis. (AFP/File)
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Updated 16 August 2022

Tunisians firmly backed new constitution: final results

Tunisians firmly backed new constitution: final results
  • The charter was approved by just over 2.6 million people, the board's president Farouk Bouasker told reporters
  • The referendum came a year to the day after Saied sacked the government and froze parliament in what rivals have branded a coup

TUNIS: The final results of a controversial referendum granting unchecked powers to the office of Tunisia’s President Kais Saied showed 94.6 percent of votes in favor, the electoral authority said Tuesday.
Voters overwhelmingly approved the new constitution, the electoral board said, officially announcing definitive results from the July 25 poll.
The charter was approved by just over 2.6 million people, the board’s president Farouk Bouasker told reporters.
Turnout was considered very low at 30.5 percent.
The referendum came a year to the day after Saied sacked the government and froze parliament in what rivals have branded a coup.
Despite the low turnout, Saied’s move against a system that emerged after the 2011 overthrow of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was welcomed by many Tunisians.
Many people were fed up with high inflation and unemployment, political turmoil and a system they felt had brought little improvement to their lives.
However, opposition politicians and human rights groups have warned of a return to dictatorship under the new constitution.
“The constitution comes into force with the announcement of the final results, its promulgation by the president and its publication in the official journal,” Bouasker said on Tuesday.
He said the fact that appeals against the referendum process had been rejected “confirmed the integrity and transparency of ISIE,” the North African country’s electoral commission.
Bouasker said ISIE had been subjected to “an unprecedented wave of allegations by certain political parties and civil society groups.”
The new text puts the president in command of the army, allows him to appoint a government without parliamentary approval and makes it virtually impossible to remove him from office.
He can also present draft laws to parliament, which will be obliged to give them priority.
A second chamber is created within parliament to represent the regions and counterbalance the assembly itself.
Tunisia is mired in crisis with growth of just three percent, nearly 40 percent of young people jobless and four million people out of a population of nearly 12 million in poverty.
For weeks the heavily indebted country has been negotiating a new loan with the International Monetary Fund, hoping to obtain $4 billion, and also the chance to open other avenues of foreign aid, mainly European.


Egypt to allow Iranians visas on arrival in Sinai as regional tensions ease

Egypt to allow Iranians visas on arrival in Sinai as regional tensions ease
Updated 13 sec ago

Egypt to allow Iranians visas on arrival in Sinai as regional tensions ease

Egypt to allow Iranians visas on arrival in Sinai as regional tensions ease

CAIRO: Egypt will soon allow Iranians traveling with tour groups to obtain visas on arrival in the south of its Sinai peninsula with a view to extending access to other parts of the country, Egyptian Tourism Ministry officials said.

The decision is part of a series of measures announced on Monday aimed at improving access to visas to boost tourism revenues at a time when Egypt has been struggling economically with an acute foreign currency shortage.

It also comes as some Middle Eastern countries including Egypt are taking steps to ease regional tensions. Egypt’s Sunni Muslim Arab ally Saudi Arabia and Shiite Muslim Iran announced this month that they would restore diplomatic relations.

Cairo has mended a rift with Qatar and is re-establishing ties with Turkiye, another country to benefit from new visa rules with Turkish nationals given expanded access to visas on arrival, according to a Egyptian Tourism Ministry statement.

Among the other new visa rules announced were a $700, five-year multiple-entry visa, which Tourism Minister Ahmed Issa said was aimed at investors and property owners who are based outside Egypt.

On visas for Iranians arriving in South Sinai, home to the highly secured resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, Issa said: “We will evaluate the experience of their arrival in South Sinai as a first step, and building on that, we’ll determine if they will be admitted in other places.”

Relations between Egypt and Iran have generally been fraught in recent decades although the two countries have maintained diplomatic contacts.

Tourists from China, which Egypt regards as a market with big potential, and Indians residing in Gulf countries will also be granted visas on arrival.

All new visa rules have been approved in principle and will be put into effect soon, a Tourism Ministry official said.


In Egypt’s ‘Garbage City,’ a charity teaches children to recycle

In Egypt’s ‘Garbage City,’ a charity teaches children to recycle
Updated 23 min 56 sec ago

In Egypt’s ‘Garbage City,’ a charity teaches children to recycle

In Egypt’s ‘Garbage City,’ a charity teaches children to recycle

CAIRO: As a child growing up in Cairo’s Manshiyat Nasser, a shanty town also known as “Garbage City,” Teresa Saeed spent her free time rummaging through the piles of rubbish strewn everywhere to find paper and materials to indulge her love of drawing and painting.

Now 34, she runs a charity that encourages children in the area to make creative and positive use of their environment by exploring the space and recycling.

In Manshiyat Nasser, a neighborhood of unpainted brick buildings east of central Cairo, many streets and buildings are piled high with rubbish collected from across the metropolis and processed or recycled informally.

“The whole idea is that these children are constantly surrounded with recycling. Why not teach them how to recycle in a way that reduces our consumption and benefits society?” she said.

Saeed’s charity Mesaha, the Arabic word for space, runs weekly recycling activities for 150-200 children aged 6-15.

In two-day workshops, the children gather plastic bottles, sticks, cardboard, paper and cans, and transform them into piggy banks, musical instruments, puzzles, or paintings.

“These activities help children connect with their environment and think outside the box,” Saeed said. “Instead of being angry at my surrounding environment, how can I do something that adds value to it?”

Saeed hopes to expand the project to other areas in Egypt.

“I dream that those children will grow to be leaders of change in their future professions or wherever they go” she said.


Tunisia cuts off water supply at night amid severe drought

Tunisia cuts off water supply at night amid severe drought
Updated 28 min 32 sec ago

Tunisia cuts off water supply at night amid severe drought

Tunisia cuts off water supply at night amid severe drought

TUNIS: Tunisian authorities have started cutting off drinking water at night in areas of the capital and other cities, residents said, in what appears to be a bid to reduce consumption amid a severe drought.

Cutting off water without prior announcement, in areas of the capital Tunis, Hammamet, Sousse, Monastir and Sfax, threatens to fuel social tension in a country whose people suffer from poor public services, high inflation and a weak economy.

Officials of the water distribution company contacted by Reuters declined to comment.

Tunisia is suffering a serious drought, prompting officials to say the ministry may begin to cut off water supply at night over the summer to reduce consumption due to the scarcity of reserves in the country.

FASTFACT

Tunisia is suffering a serious drought, prompting officials to say the ministry may begin to cut off water supply at night over the summer to reduce consumption due to the scarcity of reserves in the country. The continued lack of rain, however, appears to have prompted authorities to start doing so early in some places.

The continued lack of rain, however, appears to have prompted authorities to start doing so early in some places.

Yassin Mami, a lawmaker in the new parliament, said officials from the national water company informed him that the reason for the frequent interruption of water supply in Hammamet city, was “because the country is threatened by water scarcity.”

Tunisian dams recorded a decrease in capacity of around of 1 billion cubic meters due to scarcity of rain from September 2022 to mid-March 2023, Hamadi Habib, a senior official in the agriculture ministry, said.

The Sidi Salem Dam in the north of the country, a key provider of drinking water to several regions, has declined to only 16 percent of its maximum capacity of 580 million cubic meters, official figures showed.


Israel’s ‘fired’ defense chief hangs on

Israel’s ‘fired’ defense chief hangs on
Updated 29 min 51 sec ago

Israel’s ‘fired’ defense chief hangs on

Israel’s ‘fired’ defense chief hangs on
  • Aides said he never got the notification letter formally required for his removal from office

JERUSALEM: The Israeli defense chief whose dismissal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought the country’s political crisis to a climax is remaining in office until further notice, aides said on Tuesday, suggesting government indecision on how to proceed.

Beset by unprecedented nationwide protests at his nationalist-religious coalition’s signature plan to overhaul the judiciary, Netanyahu on Monday pressed the pause button and called for compromise talks with the center-left opposition.

“We are in the midst of a crisis that is endangering the basic unity between us,” he said in a prime-time television address. “This crisis necessitates that we all conduct ourselves responsibly.”

His move stabilized Israel’s shaken economy. But questions remained about Netanyahu’s credibility — including within his own camp — after dissent by some senior Likud party colleagues.

Among these was Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who on Saturday broke rank by openly calling for a halt to the overhaul in the name of preventing anti-reform protests from spreading in the military. A day later, Netanyahu said he was firing Gallant.

Ordinarily, that termination would have gone into effect on Tuesday. But Gallant aides said he never got the notification letter formally required to begin the 48-hour countdown to his removal from office, and was continuing to work indefinitely.

Asked whether Gallant was being kept on or replaced, spokespeople for Netanyahu and Likud had no immediate comment.

An opinion poll by top-rated Channel 12 TV found that 63 percent of Israelis — and 58 percent of Likud voters — opposed a Gallant ouster. Similar majorities supported Netanyahu pausing the reforms.

But with 68 percent of Israelis faulting him for the crisis, Channel 12 found that, were an election held today, Netanyahu and coalition allies would lose. Two of those parties, Religious Zionism and Jewish Power, voiced misgiving at the reform pause.

Jewish Power’s leader, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, said Netanyahu had assured him that if compromise talks over the Passover festival and other national holidays in April fail, the coalition would pursue the reforms unilaterally.

In parliament, the coalition on Tuesday tabled for final readings a key bill that would give Netanyahu greater control of the system for selecting judges. A parliamentary spokesperson called this a technicality. Asked how soon the coalition could call a ratification vote, he said: “In theory, the day after.”

There were charges of bad faith from the opposition, which has already named a negotiating team for the compromise talks.

“A gun is being held to our heads,” tweeted former Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman. He accused Netanyahu of using the pause in the judicial overhaul to deplete the anti-government protests, and urged fellow opposition leaders to withdraw their negotiators until the judges’ bill is withdrawn from the plenum.

Likud has yet to say who would represent the coalition in the talks. There was no immediate word from President Isaac Herzog, the host of the negotiations, on when they might begin.

While Israeli streets were mostly quiet on Tuesday, some of the tens of thousands of Israelis who have held escalating protests against the judicial overhaul said they would return.

“I will continue protesting until these reforms are completely dropped, because this isn’t a set of reforms, this is a coup by the executive,” said Eitan Kahana, a 27-year-old demonstrator in Jerusalem.

Critics say the judicial overhaul threatens the independence of the courts. Netanyahu, who is on trial on corruption charges he denies, said the reforms balance out branches of government.


Determined to see fair vote, Turks mobilize for May election

Determined to see fair vote, Turks mobilize for May election
Updated 33 min 8 sec ago

Determined to see fair vote, Turks mobilize for May election

Determined to see fair vote, Turks mobilize for May election
  • Observers should be able to prevent any attempts to cast votes in the names of people who died in the earthquake but who had yet to be removed from the records

ISTANBUL: Sensing the best chance yet to end President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s two-decade rule in Turkiye, his opponents are mobilizing to make sure every ballot is counted in a May election and to guard against any tampering in what is expected to be a tight vote.

With the stakes so high, concerns about potential irregularities have been heightened by upheaval wrought by February’s devastating earthquakes in the southeast, where some 50,000 people were killed and millions made homeless.

Yigit, 26, a student from southern Turkiye, said he will watch the polling in his hometown of Antakya come election day on May 14, to make sure nobody tries to cast ballots in the name of his parents, who died in the disaster.

“I will wait at the ballot box to make sure that no one else is voting in their place,” Yigit said.

His parents have not been officially declared dead because their bodies were not found in the rubble. They still appear as eligible voters, said Yigit, who declined to give his full name.

The election marks the toughest political challenge yet for Erdogan, who was already facing criticism over an economy in crisis when the earthquake struck. While polls show him trailing opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the race remains tight and campaigning is just beginning.

An alliance of six opposition parties hoping to unseat the president is planning measures to safeguard a free and fair election, including recruiting professionals such as lawyers to monitor the voting, said Idris Sahin, deputy chair of DEVA Party.

DEVA officials are comparing voter lists from Dec. 31 with the updated registry in the earthquake zone, he said, including checking whether those who moved away are registered in their new residences and whether those who died have been removed.

Observers should be able to prevent any attempts to cast votes in the names of people who died in the earthquake but who had yet to be removed from the records, Sahin added.

“It is not clear whether some citizens are alive or dead in the earthquake zone. Our members need to be careful about these records,” he said, adding that this number could be between 3,000-5,000 at most.

Opposition parties have alleged electoral irregularities in the past, including criticism of measures taken by the High Electoral Board and Erdogan’s influence over the country’s newsrooms.

Turkiye ranked the 123rd among 167 countries in 2019 according to the Electoral Integrity Project, an academic study which compares elections worldwide.

However, there were no accusations of major rigging in the most recent, 2018 presidential election and the opposition candidate conceded. Erdogan’s AK Party has said it is committed to a free and fair election that respects the will of the people.

FASTFACT

With the stakes so high, concerns about potential irregularities have been heightened by upheaval wrought by February’s devastating earthquakes in the southeast, where some 50,000 people were killed and millions made homeless.

Turkish elections are typically monitored by hundreds of thousands of volunteers across the country of 85 million people.

Opposition parties and nongovernmental organizations say the exodus of more than 3 million people from the disaster zone poses extra concerns. The earthquake devastated 11 provinces that were home to 14 million people.

“We have a problem updating the electoral records correctly and ballot box security after such a disaster,” said Bekir Agirdir, a board member of pollster KONDA research.

“How many people are actually relocating? How many people will be properly registered on the voter lists?“

The YSK electoral board has said there are no obstacles to holding elections in the southeast, and has announced additional measures such as setting up ballot boxes for voters in temporary shelters and allowing those who moved away to easily change their registered address.

Vote and Beyond, an NGO focused on election security, will commission some 100,000 volunteers as monitors for its system to cross-check the records at each of the 200,000 ballot boxes.

Erdogan’s AK Party has also said it will commission observers.

Mehmet Rustu Tiryaki of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (HDP) said some 9 million voters are registered in the area affected by the earthquake. While some 300,000 to 500,000 of them were thought to have changed addresses, many of those who had left the disaster zone had not, added Tiryaki.

For Yigit, the earthquake and what he sees as the government’s slow response to the disaster weighs on him as he decides how to vote.

My parents “were not protected, and no help came. This time, I will also vote with this responsibility on my shoulders,” he said.