Tunisia a long-delayed new constitution is to be put to vote on Saturday, more than three years after the revolution, constituent assembly officials said.
Tunisia a long-delayed new constitution is to be put to vote on Saturday, more than three years after the revolution, constituent assembly officials said.
"The vote will be held tomorrow, Saturday," Mofdi Mssedi, spokesman for the speaker's office, told AFP on Friday, a day after pa
rliament completed its review of each article in the draft charter.
The time of the vote has yet to be determined.
"If the constitution is adopted on the first reading by a two-thirds majority, the signing ceremony will take place on Monday," said Karima Souid, an MP and information officer at the assembly.
The text must be approved by at least 145 of the 217 members of the assembly to be adopted, and would then be formally promulgated by the president, prime minister and parliamentary speaker.
If it fails to achieve the necessary majority on either its first or second reading, the charter must be put to a referendum.
The political parties have sought to avoid that outcome, to be able to hold legislative and presidential elections in 2014 and end the political crisis plaguing Tunisia since the assassination of two opposition MPs last year by suspected jihadist.
The national assembly was elected in October 2011, nine months after the popular uprising that toppled strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and touched off the Arab Spring.
