Arab Press

بالشعب و للشعب
Friday, Nov 21, 2025

Tunisia civil society groups raise questions over referendum data

Tunisia civil society groups raise questions over referendum data

Amid complaints over data management, election authority maintains the results of constitutional referendum are valid.

More than a week after Tunisians backed a new constitution proposed by President Kais Saied, civil society groups are demanding the election authority publish the raw vote data to see if the process was valid – and some are even asking for a recount.

According to the Tunisian Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE), some 2.93 million voters, of the 9.2 million registered, took part in the July 25 vote, with 92 percent of those participating voting “Yes”.

The low turnout of 31 percent came amid a boycott campaign from the opposition, which says the new constitution could lead Tunisia back to one-man rule, an allegation Saied denies.

There was no minimum level of participation set for the referendum, so the constitution, which will change Tunisia from its current hybrid parliamentary democracy to one where the president has sweeping powers, will be adopted.

While civil society observers do not dispute the winning “Yes” vote, nor do they accuse the ISIE of fraud, they have expressed concerns about vote data management. They want polling station data to be published in an easily accessible format and point out serious errors in some governorate results published on the day after the referendum, which were rectified by the ISIE on August 2.

Meanwhile, “No” campaign leaders and the political party Afek Tounes are demanding the whole result be cancelled, claiming the referendum process was unconstitutional and that the “No” campaign was blocked from holding campaign events.




Anti-corruption organisation I Watch accused ISIE’s staff of “being incompetent and lacking integrity”.

Slim Bouzid, of the independent vote observation association Mourakiboun, said I Watch had asked for a recount, but his organisation had requested “the detailed data in spreadsheet, so that we can verify whether these were, in fact, errors or something else,” said Bouzid, shying away from defining what he was hinting at, when pressed by Al Jazeera.

But ISIE President Farouk Bouasker has hit back at those who, he said, were accusing the authority of fraud and of falsifying the election results, pledging legal action against them.

Bouasker also told a news conference on Tuesday that the three legal cases filed against ISIE did not concern the results. “This shows the referendum results are sound,” he said in Tunis.

The complaints against ISIE will be heard on Friday.




Since the writing of Tunisia’s constitution in 2014, the independent election authority has successfully organised three general elections and received praise from observers for running free and fair polls in a competent manner.

But in May, Saied replaced the ISIE’s executive committee, giving the newly reformed body just two months to organise the referendum, including recruiting and training 80,000 new polling station workers.

“We don’t believe that ISIE is a genuinely independent authority any more,” I Watch executive bureau member, Mouhoub Garoui, told Al Jazeera.

Bouzid said the whole referendum process was problematic, including the handling of personal data without consent.

Before the vote, ISIE hailed the registration of some 2.26 million new voters, but Bouzid said “the voluntary recruiting of new voters failed due to lack of equipment and poor strategy, so [ISIE] switched to automatic registration”.

According to Bouzid, “the ideal number of voters per polling station” to ensure an error-free count is 600. But before the referendum, the number of polling stations was cut from 14,700 to 11,762, which led to a maximum of 1,000 voters registered for each centre, which Bouzid said could have led to vote-counting errors.

Meanwhile, political scientist Monica Marks, assistant professor of Arabic Cross Roads Studies at New York University Abu Dhabi, who has been interviewing all parties involved in the referendum process, also pointed out that the ISIE had not released the vote data in a file format that observers could access and analyse.

“We do not have any independent, fully transparent evidence to verify ISIE’s figures,” Marks said.

When contacted by Al Jazeera, ISIE maintained that no errors were made in the counting of the ballots.




The referendum also took place with fewer observers than in previous electoral processes. Bouzid said that in the past, ISIE would authorise some 15,000 independent observers – but this time there were just “6,000 observer accreditations, of which half were accredited to Mourakiboun”.

Mrabti Said, an observer from the Chahed Observatory for Election Monitoring, told Al Jazeera that he and his colleagues had been refused entry to polling stations because they had not been issued the correct accreditation. “ISIE didn’t buy enough cards to print all the passes requested by independent and international observers,” he said.

Said, who had observed every election since the 2011 revolution with the Chahed organisation, said he was shocked by incidents of police heavy-handedness. “Police agents attacked one of our observers … [in the] suburb of Djebel Jelloud. [They] arrested and took him to the police station there.”

Marks added: “We do not have and we never will have a full list of violations in this referendum, because observers were only present in a small fraction of locations and because ISIE workers were so haphazardly recruited and trained.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

Arab Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund Emerges as Key Contender in Warner Bros. Discovery Sale
Trump Secures Sweeping U.S.–Saudi Agreements on Jets, Technology and Massive Investment
Detroit CEOs Join White House Dinner as U.S.–Saudi Auto Deal Accelerates
Netanyahu Secures U.S. Assurance That Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge Will Remain Despite Saudi F-35 Deal
Ronaldo Joins Trump and Saudi Crown Prince’s Gala Amid U.S.–Gulf Tech and Investment Surge
U.S.–Saudi Investment Forum Sees U.S. Corporate Titans and Saudi Royalty Forge Billion-Dollar Ties
Elon Musk’s xAI to Deploy 500-Megawatt Saudi Data Centre with State-backed Partner HUMAIN
U.S. Clears Export of Advanced AI Chips to Saudi Arabia and UAE Amid Strategic Tech Partnership
xAI Selects Saudi Data-Centre as First Customer of Nvidia-Backed Humain Project
President Trump Hosts Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Washington Amid Strategic Deal Talks
Saudi Crown Prince to Press Trump for Direct U.S. Role in Ending Sudan War
Trump Hosts Saudi Crown Prince: Five Key Takeaways from the White House Meeting
Trump Firmly Defends Saudi Crown Prince Over Khashoggi Murder Amid Washington Visit
Trump Backs Saudi Crown Prince Over Khashoggi Killing Amid White House Visit
Trump Publicly Defends Saudi Crown Prince Over Khashoggi Killing During Washington Visit
President Donald Trump Hosts Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at White House to Seal Major Defence and Investment Deals
Saudi Arabia’s Solar Surge Signals Unlikely Shift in Global Oil Powerhouse
Saudi Crown Prince Receives Letter from Iranian President Ahead of U.S. Visit
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Begins Washington Visit to Cement Long-Term U.S. Alliance
Saudi Crown Prince Meets Trump in Washington to Deepen Defence, AI and Nuclear Ties
Saudi Arabia Accelerates Global Mining Strategy to Build a New Economic Pillar
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Arrives in Washington to Reset U.S.–Saudi Strategic Alliance
Saudi-Israeli Normalisation Deal Looms, But Riyadh Insists on Proceeding After Israeli Elections
Saudis Prioritise US Defence Pact and AI Deals, While Israel Normalisation Takes Back Seat
Saudi Crown Prince’s Washington Visit Aims to Advance Defence, AI and Nuclear Cooperation
Saudi Delegation Strengthens EU–MENA Security Cooperation in Lisbon
Saudi Arabia’s Fossil-Fuel Dominance Powers Global Climate Blockade
Trump Organization Engages Saudi Government-Owned Real-Estate Deal Amid White House Visit
Trump Organization Nears Billion-Dollar Saudi Real Estate Deal Amid White House Diplomacy
Israel Presses U.S. to Tie Saudi F-35 Sale to Formal Normalisation
What We Know Now: Donald Trump’s Financial Ties to Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia’s Ambitious Defence Wish List for Washington: From AI Drones to Nuclear Umbrella
Analysis Shows China, Saudi Arabia and UAE among Major Recipients of Climate Finance Loans
Why a Full Saudi–Israel Normalisation Deal Eludes Trump’s Reach
Trump Presses Saudi Arabia to Normalise Ties with Israel as MBS Prepares for White House Visit
US-Saudi Summit Set for November 18 Seeks Defence Pact and Israel Normalisation Momentum
Comcast CEO Brian Roberts Visits Saudi Arabia Amid Potential Bid for Warner Bros. Discovery
Cristiano Ronaldo Embraces Saudi Arabia’s 2034 World Cup Vision with Key Role
Saudi Arabia’s Execution Campaign Escalates as Crown Prince Readies U.S. Visit
Trump Unveils Middle East Reset: Syria Re-engaged, Saudi Ties Amplified
Saudi Arabia to Build Future Cities Designed with Tourists in Mind, Says Tourism Minister
Saudi Arabia Advances Regulated Stablecoin Plans with Global Crypto Exchange Support
Saudi Arabia Maintains Palestinian State Condition Ahead of Possible Israel Ties
Chinese Steel Exports Surge 41% to Saudi Arabia as Mills Pivot Amid Global Trade Curbs
Saudi Arabia’s Biban Forum 2025 Secures Over US$10 Billion in Deals Amid Global SME Drive
Saudi Arabia Sets Pre-Conditions for Israel Normalisation Ahead of Trump Visit
MrBeast’s ‘Beast Land’ Arrives in Riyadh as Part of Riyadh Season 2025
Cristiano Ronaldo Asserts Saudi Pro League Outperforms Ligue 1 Amid Scoring Feats
AI Researchers Claim Human-Level General Intelligence Is Already Here
Saudi Arabia Pauses Major Stretch of ‘The Line’ Megacity Amid Budget Re-Prioritisation
×