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Tunisia referendum: voter turnout reaches 85 % at 4.00 pm.
Tunis 26 May 2002 (TunisiaOnline)
Eight hours into the vote in Tunisia's first ever referendum, the turnout rate has reachd more than 85 percent, it was announced in Tunis.
The official source said voter turnout reached 85.71 at at 4.00 pm (local time).
Since 8.00 am Sunday morning, the country's three million and a half voters went to the polls to take part in Tunisia's
first-ever referendum.
They are voting in 15,000 polling stations around the country on a constitutional reform bill already adopted by the chamber
of Deputies on April 2002.
President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Tunisian First Lady Leila Ben Ali have cast their vote this morning at a Carthage
polling station, ten miles north of Tunis.
International observers and foreign
media representatives, attending the referendum, have visited various polling stations.Voting stations will remain open to 8.00 p.m., two hours longer than previously scheduled in order to accommodate voters traveling during the Birthday of the Prophet holidays.
Expatriate nationals have started voting in the referendum on May 18. They cast their votes in a total of 78 stations around the world.
The referendum will allow Tunisians to decide on a number of constitutional amendments aimed at bolstering civil liberties and public freedoms, strengthening oversight over the constitutionality of laws and increasing the transparency of the electoral process.
Changes also introduce into the constitution additional guarantees regarding the pre-trial and preventive custody of defendants. The reform consecrates for the first time the notions of human rights, solidarity, mutual help and tolerance as part of the values enshrined in the Constitution.
One of the results of the amendment will be the setting up of a second legislative body, to be called " the chamber of advisers ". This new body will comprise about 120 members, elected for a six year-term. It will have one third less members than the 182-member chamber of deputies that will continue to play the central role in the legislative process.
The reform also does away with presidential term limitations while setting a maximum age ceiling of 75 years for candidacy to the office of president.
