Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi Wants Constitutional Amendment To Entrust More Power To The Presidency

Tunisia’s President Beji Caid Essebsi on Wednesday called out for bringing amendments to the new constitution to entrust more power to the presidency.

“I have a ready-made version of the constitutional amendment proposals,” Essebsi said while speaking at the Carthage Palace on the occasion of Tunisia’s 63rd independence anniversary from France in 1956, reported Reuters.

He attributed the constitutional amendment to differences in the interpretation of some chapters of the constitution.

Tunisia’s constitution was adopted back in 2014 after the uprising of 2011 that ousted autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The constitution gives the prime minister a much bigger role to play as compared to the President.

Notably, despite constitutional limits, the current President Essebsi continued to be a dominant figure in Tunisia since being elected in 2014. But he has lost influence since Prime Minister Youssef Chahed took office in 2016.

The tension between the two highest offices in the country escalated last year when Essebsi called on Chahed to resign. Instead of resigning, Chahed unveiled a new cabinet in November last year together with the moderate Islamist Ennahda party. The parliament voted in a majority to grant confidence to a Cabinet reshuffle proposed by Chahed without even holding consultations with the president.

Essebsi said Chahed’s act of going to parliament (to ask for confidence) without going through the president was not correct. Notably, the president controls the country’s defense and foreign policy.

Now that the parliamentary election is due in October and a presidential vote is scheduled for November, Essebsi wants some amendments to be made the nation’s ruling charter.

“The president has no major functions and executive power is in the hands of the prime minister,” Essebsi said in a speech broadcast on state television to mark Independence Day. “It would be better to think about amending some chapters of the constitution.”