 The new constitution proposed by Tunisian President Kais Saeed has been approved in a referendum as per preliminary results. 94.6% of voters adopted the constitution, according to numbers released by the Tunisian Independent Higher Election Authority. The referendum was held on July 25 amid widespread calls for boycott by opposition parties and civil society. It took place exactly a year after President Kais Saeed sacked former Prime Minister Hisham Mashiishi. In the subsequent months, he assumed more power. He also sacked a large number of judges after accusing them of inefficiency and harboring terrorists. The draft constitution proposed on June 30 by Saeed faced immense criticism from all sections of the country. Critics said it was a power grab by Saeed. Tunisia's opposition attributed the low voter turnout to illegitimacy of the referendum. Taeed has claimed that low turnout will not affect the prospects of the referendum. The new constitution will replace the existing one that was claimed following the Tunisian Revolution of 2011. It will give the president more powers over legislation and the judiciary. Parties such as Islamist Anhadah, Democratic Progressive Party, Free Disturion Party and the Workers' Party of Tunisia have been leading various campaigns asking the people to boycott the referendum. They argue that the process through which the new constitution was drafted is not democratic but illegitimate. The proceedings of the committee which drafted the constitution have also been questioned on the grounds that its appointment was arbitrary. The committee was not allowed to consult any political party while drafting the constitution. Despite being invited to Tunisia's largest union, the Tunisian General Labour Union boycotted the committee's consultation asserting that the dialogue was arbitrary and unilateral. The main sort of thrust is that it will be basically doing away with what had been a divided executive between the president and the prime minister and it will be giving all of the power to the presidency. We'll see that there is still a parliament but it seems that its powers are vastly reduced. There seems to be very few checks on the presidency. Actually, one of the advisors who was involved in the drafting of this draft has given an interview where he's actually condemned the final version. He says that the version he presented to the president, all of the checks that were there have been reduced and it's no longer just a hyper-presidential system but he says that it really is a dictatorial system and that's one of the criticisms we've seen from many political parties. That said, human rights are still protected within the new draft constitution but many of the institutions and institutional checks that were there to really guarantee them seem to have been taken away and that seems to be the main concern that we've heard from human rights activists. There are no guarantees of some of the independent state bodies that previously had been assured about the constitution, whether that's the higher electoral board or whether that's an anti-corruption authority. There are question marks over the regulatory board for broadcasting in media and so these are certainly some concerns that people have. At the moment, I can tell you that the debate over the referendum for them, people who are supporting it, really are not supporting it on the merits of the constitution. They're supporting it either as a way to say that we don't want to go back to rule under a parliamentary system where the main party, the biggest party would be the Anasta-Islamist party or they're just saying we want to basically give a vote of confidence to the Kaifayat but really not engaging with the substance of the constitution. Large-scale protests have been going on in Tunisia since the President's power grab last year. Last week, several thousands took to the streets in the capital Tunis against the referendum. The police forces tried to brutally suppress the demonstration and arrested scores of human rights activists and members of the Workers' Party of Tunisia. Alongside the political conditions, Tunisia is witnessing a major economic crisis and the past few years have seen increased frustration amongst labour and social movements. Kaifayat has continued neoliberal economic policies and has not been able to manage the crisis. There was an amnesty bill after the revolution in 2011 that took many years. It was finally passed but activists who had pushed back against it had basically succeeded in limiting it to amnesty only for corrupt officials of the Benali era but not for corrupt businessmen. And the President basically extended amnesty in the hopes that this would convince these businessmen to bring money back in in the form of investment. Now, it's really not clear that that's the case. It's not clear that there's any sort of transparency or accountability in terms of actually tracking that wealth. He's made a few sort of, let's say, at the rhetorical level and pay-ons to tracking down illicit capital flow that has gone out of the country to a debt audit. But he hasn't taken any substantive steps. And in the meantime, he's continuing negotiations with the IMF for a new loan of something like $4 billion, which in many cases we're hearing people say there really isn't an alternative. Even people who are very critical of the IMF are saying that Tunisia is at the moment unless there's significant debt forgiveness, unless there's really very strong steps towards energy and food sovereignty. There really isn't an alternative at this current moment to a new IMF loan, but it doesn't seem that the President has really tried to offer alternatives that are really substantive to the way that Tunisia was going before economically.