Tunisian Alliance Rejects Calls for Referendum Prior to Constituent Assembly

 Statement: Call for opposing the enemies of the revolution

In the Name of God, Most Beneficent, Most Merciful

Following the multiplication of calls for a referendum on 23 October limiting the prerogatives and lifetime of the national constituent assembly to be elected on the same day, the parties composing the “23 October Alliance”:

1.     Believe that the pre-23-October legal framework does not grant anyone the right to call for a popular referendum, and considers such a call to be a contravention of that framework and a distortion of the electoral process.

2.     Stresses the necessity of respecting the people’s sovereignty in determining its future and electing its representatives, while giving elected bodies full prerogatives in view of their legitimate status, and calls for desisting from participating in calls aiming at limiting the rights of the constituent assembly. It considers the calls for a referendum a contravention of the national consensus which has been formed concerning the return to popular legitimacy through the constituent assembly.

3.     Expresses its rejection of holding a referendum prior to the formation of the constituent assembly, and its belief that the latter should determine its own prerogatives and duration as part of its internal regulations and during its first meetings. It insists on the right of the constituent assembly to choose the new executive power and to be given the task of supervising its work.

4.     Strongly condemns the insistence of certain political parties on confiscating the popular will, and calls on all the Tunisian people to be alert to these desperate repeated attempts to abort the progress of the revolution and perpetuate the state of illegitimacy in the temporary structures of the state.

Congress for the Republic, Abderraouf al-Ayyadi

Popular Unity Movement, Ibrahim Haydar

Reform and Development Party, Mohamed al-Goumani

An-Nahdha Movement, Hammadi al-Jebali