UPDATE 2 - Tunisians vote in referendum on new constitution

UPDATES WITH TURNOUT

By Adel Al-Thabti

TUNIS, Tunisia (AA) - Tunisians began Monday voting in a referendum on a new constitution put forward by President Kais Saied.

Polling stations opened at 6 a.m. local time (0500GMT), and according to the Independent High Authority for Elections, over 9 million people are registered to take part in the referendum.

Meanwhile, Saied accused parties -- without naming them -- of creating a crisis to deviate people from real issues in the country.

In a statement, while heading for a polling station in the capital Tunis, the president vowed to hold those parties accountable and to bring them to justice.

He also asked the Tunisians to cast their votes on the constitution and not to leave Tunisia, for those who, according to him, work against it whether inside or outside.

"We will start together a new history based on the responsibility of the official in front of the people who elected him," Saied said.

Meanwhile, the country’s Independent High Authority for Elections announced that so far “564,753 voters, or 6.32 percent, participated in the referendum on the constitution until 9:30 local time (0830GMT)."

The authority’s president Farouk Bouasker said that the voting process is underway "naturally" affirming that "voters are free to vote yes or no."

He stated that after 10:00 in the evening (2100GMT), the polling centers turn directly into offices for vote counting centers.

Since July 25, 2021, Tunisia has been undergoing a severe political crisis, when Saied sacked the government and suspended the parliament.

Tunisian forces consider these measures a "coup against the constitution," but others see them as a "correction of the course of the 2011 revolution," which overthrew then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Saied, who started in 2019 a five-year presidential term, considers his measures necessary to "save the country from imminent danger."

*Ikram Imane Kouachi, Ahmed Asmar and Mahmoud Barakat in Ankara contributed to this report