Yesterday, Tunisian President Kais Syed defended a draft constitution to be put to a referendum this month, sparking controversy after the head of the committee charged with drafting the draft distanced himself from the published text.
Sadiq Belaid, head of the New Republic’s National Advisory Committee, whom Said had tasked with drafting a new constitution, presented his draft to the president on June 22.
But he distanced himself from the text published by Saeed Al-Khamis in a letter published by the Al-Sabah newspaper on Sunday and confirmed to AFP that he had written it.
In his message, Belaid, one of Tunisia’s most prominent lawyers, stressed that the draft constitution published on Thursday in the Official Gazette “has nothing to do with the one we drafted and presented to the president.”
In a message posted yesterday by the President of the Republic on Facebook, Said strongly defended the draft constitution, saying that it “is in line with the spirit of the revolution and the spirit of the path of correction.”
Said also stressed in his letter that “there is no fear for rights and freedoms.”
He responded to criticism leveled at him, which said that the new constitution “prepares for the return of tyranny”, emphasizing that “what they fabricate and broadcast is far from reality.”
He turned to the Tunisian writer: “Say yes to the referendum scheduled for July 25, ‘so that the state does not fall into old age.’
