TUNIS: Tunisian President Kais Saied, who last year grabbed power in what critics labelled a coup, has now asked voters for their political views — but days before the online poll closes, fewer than six percent had taken part.
Most people in the small North African country are more concerned with food shortages, unemployment and financial woes than in joining in the process to help rewrite the constitution.
The online questionnaire was launched in January, more than half a year after Saied sacked the government, froze parliament and seized near-total power in a decisive blow against the country’s political elite.
The results are to be presented to a committee of experts — hand-picked by Saied — who will then draft a new constitution ahead of a referendum in July.
But with just days to go until the portal closes on Sunday evening, only 412,000 people — under six percent of the seven-million-strong electorate — had taken part.
“It’s clear that there’s a lack of interest in this consultation,” said analyst Hamza Meddeb. “The timing wasn’t well thought-out.”
Saied’s July power grab abruptly suspended the mixed presidential-parliamentary system enshrined in Tunisia’s 2014 constitution, a hard-won compromise between rival ideological camps reached three years after a revolt toppled dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Tunisia has often been praised abroad as the only democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring uprisings.
But many Tunisians have long become disillusioned with a political class seen as corrupt and incompetent, meaning Saied’s move initially sparked a wave of support.
Meddeb believes that if the consultation had taken place immediately, participation could have been much higher.
But seven months on, he said, “the president has shown that he didn’t have a project or a program to improve Tunisians’ daily lives.”
In the streets of Tunis, few people seem interested in the exercise.
Saied “just wants to use the public to achieve his own goals,” said shop-owner Safia.
Her colleague Hassen agreed.
“People are sinking into poverty and despair and Saied keeps telling us about the political regime,” he said. “We’re really tired.”
Tunisia is locked in a grinding economic crisis which began long before the coronavirus pandemic sparked mass job losses and the war in Ukraine threatened to exacerbate shortages of basic goods.
Years of high unemployment and inflation have left many families struggling to get by — and with little interest in high politics.
As the consultation draws to a close, stalls have appeared in Tunis to encourage citizens to do their “national duty” and fill in the form, which covers politics, the economy, social problems, health and other issues.
Saied also ordered Prime Minister Najla Bouden to make Internet access free for the final 10 days of the consultation finishing on March 20.
Sarra, a 32-year-old civil servant, said it was “good to try and gather people’s opinions then put the necessary reforms in place.”
But many other Tunisians are skeptical.
“People are dying of hunger but all they care about is the consultation,” one wrote online.
Some asked by AFP said they were not even aware of the exercise — despite an information campaign on national television, even during religious programs.
“They should have come and looked for us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter,” said student Wajdi.
Saied, accused by his rivals of wanting to bring autocracy back to Tunisia, has made no secret of wanting to install a more presidential regime.
The Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party and several other political blocs have called for a boycott of the consultation.
Ennahdha’s arch-enemy, staunchly anti-Islamist lawyer and Free Destourian Party chief Abir Moussi, has also accused Saied of using state resources for his personal political project.
The exercise has received little support from civil society groups.
Meddeb said the president had “not built a coalition” to bring his project to fruition.
“Kais Saied doesn’t represent change any more, he’s just busy opening new fronts” against his political rivals, he said.
“He moves forward alone, maps out his route alone and is deciding the fate of the country alone.”
Tunisians snub poll on reforms as economic crisis bites
https://arab.news/w7q36
Tunisians snub poll on reforms as economic crisis bites
- Most people in the small North African country are more concerned with food shortages, unemployment and financial woes
- "It's clear that there's a lack of interest in this consultation," said analyst Hamza Meddeb
Norway to ask ICJ to step in after Israel bans UNRWA
- Bills passed by Israel’s parliament will stop UN agency from sending vital aid to Gaza
- Norwegian FM: Bills will ‘undermine the stability of the entire Middle East’
London: Norway will ask the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion condemning Israel for ceasing cooperation with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.
Last month, Israel’s parliament passed two bills banning the agency from the country and forbidding state cooperation with it.
There are fears that the bills, due to come into effect within three months, will prevent UNRWA from delivering vital aid into Gaza.
The agency says two-thirds of its buildings have been destroyed in Israel’s invasion of the Palestinian enclave, and 243 staff have been killed.
Norway’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik has held talks at the UN on a draft resolution to urge an advisory opinion from the ICJ to protect the existence of UNRWA.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said: “The international community cannot accept that the UN, international humanitarian organizations, and states continue to face systematic obstacles when working in Palestine and delivering humanitarian assistance to Palestinians under occupation.
“We are therefore requesting the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on Israel’s obligations to facilitate humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian population, delivered by international organizations, including the UN, and states.”
Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said the Israeli bills would “undermine the stability of the entire Middle East” and have “severe consequences for millions of civilians already living in the most dire of circumstances.”
Norway’s move is being backed by an increasing number of UN figures and member states. UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said at the UN on Monday: “The situation (in Gaza) is devastating and beyond comprehension, and frankly it is getting worse. It is totally unacceptable that it is harder than ever to get aid into Gaza.
“In October only 37 aid trucks reached Gaza, the lowest ever. There is no excuse for Israeli restrictions on aid.”
UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said: “I have drawn the attention of the member states that now the clock is ticking … We have to stop or prevent the implementation of this bill.”
According to the UN Charter, UN buildings are meant to be inviolable during conflicts. After the 2008 war in Gaza, Israel paid the UN compensation amounting to $10.4 million for damage caused to its premises after an investigation determined “an egregious breach of the inviolability of the United Nations premises and a failure to accord the property and assets of the organisation immunity from any form of interference.”
UN says over 200 children killed in Lebanon in under 2 months
Geneva: The UN said Tuesday that over 200 children have been killed in Lebanon in the less than two months since Israel escalated its attacks targeting Hezbollah.
“Despite more than 200 children killed in Lebanon in less than two months, a disconcerting pattern has emerged: their deaths are met with inertia from those able to stop this violence,” James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, told reporters in Geneva.
“Over the last two months in Lebanon, an average of three children have been killed every single day,” he said.
Israeli army says 40 projectiles fired from Lebanon into central, northern Israel
- On Monday, one person was killed and several people injured in two separate incidents
Jerusalem: The Israeli military said on Tuesday that some 40 projectiles were fired from Lebanon into central and northern Israel, with first responders reporting that four people were lightly injured by shrapnel.
“Following sirens that sounded between 09:50 and 09:51 in the Upper Galilee, Western Galilee, and Central Galilee areas, approximately 25 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israel. Some of the projectiles were intercepted and fallen projectiles were identified in the area,” the military said in a statement.
That announcement followed earlier reports that some 15 projectiles fired that set of air raid sirens.
A spokesperson for Israeli first responders said that in central Israel it found “four individuals with light injuries from glass shards.... They were injured while in a concrete building where the windows shattered.”
The Israeli police said they were searching the impact sites from projectiles intercepted by Israel’s air defense systems but did not report any serious damage.
On Monday, one person was killed and several people were injured in two separate incidents, one in the northern Israeli town of Shfaram and the other in the suburbs of Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv.
The military said Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, which is backed by Iran, fired around 100 projectiles from Lebanon toward Israel on Monday, while Israel’s air force carried out strikes on Beirut.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel in October last year in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza. Since September, Israel has conducted extensive bombing campaigns in Lebanon primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds, though some strikes have hit areas outside the Iran-backed group’s control.
US envoy Amos Hochstein arrives in Lebanon: state media
- US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that Washington had been sharing proposals with the Lebanese and Israeli governments
- Another Lebanese official said earlier that US Ambassador Lisa Johnson discussed the plan on Thursday with Prime Minister Najib Mikati
Beirut: US special envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in Lebanon for truce talks with officials on Tuesday, state media reported.
The United States and France have spearheaded efforts for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war.
On September 23, Israel began an intensified air campaign in Lebanon before sending in ground troops, nearly a year into exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of Palestinian ally Hamas after its October 7, 2023 attack sparked the war in Gaza.
A Lebanese official told AFP on Monday that the government had a positive view of a US truce proposal, while a second official said Lebanon was waiting for Hochstein’s arrival to “review certain outstanding points with him.”
On Monday, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that Washington had been sharing proposals with the Lebanese and Israeli governments.
“Both sides have reacted to the proposals that we have put forward,” he said.
Miller said the United States was pushing for “full implementation” of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006 and requires all armed forces except the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers to withdraw from the Lebanese side of the border with Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said that even with a deal Israel would “carry out operations against Hezbollah” to keep the group from rebuilding.
Another Lebanese official said earlier that US Ambassador Lisa Johnson discussed the plan on Thursday with Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Hezbollah-allied parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, who has led mediation efforts on behalf of the group.
If an agreement is reached, the United States and France would issue a joint statement, he said, followed by a 60-day truce during which Lebanon will redeploy troops in the southern border area, near Israel.
Lebanese authorities say more than 3,510 people have been killed since clashes began in October last year, with most fatalities recorded since late September.
Food shortages bring hunger pains to displaced families in central Gaza
- Almost all of Gaza’s roughly 2.3 million people now rely on international aid for survival, and doctors and aid groups say malnutrition is rampant
DEIR AL-BALAH: A shortage in flour and the closure of a main bakery in central Gaza have exacerbated an already dire humanitarian situation, as Palestinian families struggle to obtain enough food.
A crowd of people waited dejectedly in the cold outside the shuttered Zadna Bakery in Deir Al-Balah on Monday.
Among them was Umm Shadi, a displaced woman from Gaza City, who told The Associated Press that there was no bread left due to the lack of flour — a bag of which costs as much as 400 shekels ($107) in the market, she said, if any can be found.
“Who can buy a bag of flour for 400 shekels?” she asked.
Nora Muhanna, another woman displaced from Gaza City, said she was leaving empty-handed after waiting five or six hours for a bag of bread for her kids.
“From the beginning, there are no goods, and even if they are available, there is no money,” she said.
Almost all of Gaza’s roughly 2.3 million people now rely on international aid for survival, and doctors and aid groups say malnutrition is rampant. Food security experts say famine may already be underway in hard-hit north Gaza. Aid groups accuse the Israeli military of hindering and even blocking shipments in Gaza.
Meanwhile, dozens lined up in Deir Al-Balah to get their share of lentil soup and some bread at a makeshift charity kitchen.
Refat Abed, a displaced man from Gaza City, no longer knows how he can afford food.
“Where can I get money?” he asked. “Do I beg? If it were not for God and charity, my children and I would go hungry,”
