President Kais Saied said Tunisia had "entered a new phase" on Tuesday with a new constitution almost certain to pass in a referendum, concentrating almost all powers in his office.
Tunisians voted Monday in favour of the new constitution, according to an exit poll
This referendum came a year to the day after President Kais Saied sacked the government and suspended parliament in a dramatic blow to the only democracy to have emerged from the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.
Tunisians vote
The vote saw at least 27.5 percent of 9.3 million registered voters cast ballots, Tunisia's ISIE electoral commission said late Monday.
An overwhelming 93 percent of those who voted supported the new constitution, according to an exit poll taken by the Sigma Conseil institute.
Many of these were from the "middle classes most impacted" by years of economic crisis, the institute's head Hassen Zargouni told French news agency AFP.
Saied's move against a system that emerged after the 2011 overthrow of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was welcomed by many Tunisians fed up with high inflation and unemployment, political turmoil and a system they felt had brought little improvement to their lives.
Monday's turnout was seen as a gauge of Saied's popularity after a year of increasingly tight one-man rule that has seen scant progress on tackling the North African country's economic woes.
Turnout on the day was higher than many observers had expected, showing that Saied continues to enjoy personal popularity almost three years into his mandate.
After polling closed, Saied supporters drove cars in procession through central Tunis, waving flags and beeping, with some singing the national anthem or shouting "We would sacrifice our souls and our blood for you, Saied!"
Tunisia's ISIE electoral commission chief Farouk Bouaskar, appointed by the president after he seized control of the ISIE in April, called the turnout a "very respectable number".
Much polling took place in blistering summer heat, with some voters turning up before the 6:00 am start to queue in the relative cool.
After voting, they emerged with purple ink on one finger to prevent fraud.
Election monitoring group Atide said in a statement there had been "almost no representatives from the (yes and no) campaigns", and only "a weak presence of local monitors at many voting stations".
New constitution
Saied's critics have warned the new constitution would lock in presidential powers that could tip Tunisia back into dictatorship.
The new text, if passed, will place the president in command of the army, allow him to appoint a government without parliamentary approval and make him virtually impossible to remove from office.
He could also present draft laws to parliament, which would be obliged to give them priority.
The new charter "gives the president almost all powers and dismantles any check on his rule and any institution that might exert any kind of control over him," said Said Benarbia, regional director of the International Commission of Jurists.
The charter would replace a 2014 constitution that was a hard-won compromise between Islamist-leaning and secular forces.
Saied's supporters blame the resulting parliamentary-presidential system and dominant Islamist-influenced Ennahdha party for years of crises and corruption.
The draft constitution was published this month with little reference even to an earlier text produced by a committee Saied had appointed.
Sadeq Belaid, a mentor of Saied who led the process, warned that the first draft risked creating a dictatorship.
Slight amendments did little to address such concerns.
Opposition parties and civil society groups had urged a boycott of the referendum , but the powerful UGTT trade union declined to take a position.
(with AFP)
