The Constituent Assembly of

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

, or National Constituent Assembly (NCA) was the body in charge of devising a new

Tunisian constitution Tunisian may refer to: * Someone or something connected to Tunisia *Tunisian Arabic *Tunisian people *Tunisian cuisine *Tunisian culture Tunisian culture is a product of more than three thousand years of history and an important Multicultural ...

for the era after the fall of President

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (Tunisian Arabic: , ; 3 September 1936 – 19 September 2019), commonly known as Ben Ali or Ezzine, was a Tunisian politician who served as the second President of Tunisia from 1987 to 2011. In that year, during the Tun ...

and his

Constitutional Democratic Rally The Democratic Constitutional Rally or Democratic Constitutional Assembly ( ', , sometimes also called Constitutional Democratic Rally in English), also referred to by its French initials RCD, was a political party in Tunisia. Including its pred ...

(RCD)–regime. Convoked after the

election An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...

on 23 October 2011, the convention consisted of 217 lawmakers representing Tunisians living both in the country and abroad. A plurality of members came from the moderate Islamist

Ennahda Movement The Ennahda Movement (; ), also known as the Renaissance Party or simply known as Ennahda, is a self-defined Islamic democratic political party in Tunisia. Founded as the Movement of Islamic Tendency in 1981, Ennahda was inspired by the Egypti ...

. The Assembly held its first meeting on 22 November 2011, and was dissolved and replaced by the

Assembly of the Representatives of the People The Assembly of the Representatives of the People ( ', ; ARP) is the lower house of the Parliament of Tunisia. The Assembly replaced the Constituent Assembly of Tunisia, Constituent Assembly and was first Tunisian parliamentary election, 2014, e ...

on 26 October 2014.

Convocation

Provisionally, a time of approximately one year was envisioned to develop the new constitution, although the convention itself was to determine its own schedule. Before the first session of the NCA, the

Ennahda The Ennahda Movement (; ), also known as the Renaissance Party or simply known as Ennahda, is a self-defined Islamic democratic political party in Tunisia. Founded as the Movement of Islamic Tendency in 1981, Ennahda was inspired by the Egypti ...

Congress for the Republic The Congress for the Republic (; ), also referred to as El Mottamar or by its French acronym CPR, is a centre-left political party in Tunisia. It was created in 2001, but legalised only after the 2011 Tunisian revolution. Its most prominent f ...

(CPR) and

Ettakatol The Democratic Forum for Labour and Liberties (, ' ; ), also referred to as Ettakatol or by its French acronym FDTL, is a social democratic political party in Tunisia. It was founded on 9 April 1994 and officially recognized on 25 October 2002. I ...

agreed to share the three highest posts in state. Accordingly, the parliament voted

Mustapha Ben Jafar Mustapha Ben Jafar () (born 8 December 1940) is a Tunisian politician and medical doctor who was Speaker of the Constituent Assembly of Tunisia from November 2011 to December 2014. He founded and has led the Democratic Forum for Labour and Libert ...

(Ettakatol) speaker of the NCA upon being convoked on 22 November. Meherzia Labidi (Ennahda) and Larbi Abid (CPR) were elected Deputy Speakers.

Provisional constitution and presidential election

On 10 December 2011, the assembly adopted a provisional constitution (''Law on the provisional organisation of public powers'') According to articles VIII and IX of the document, the requirements for the eligibility as

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

are exclusive Tunisian nationality (excluding citizens with dual nationality), having Tunisian parentage, religious affiliation to

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

, and an age of 35 years or more. 141 delegates approved of the law, 37 voted against, and 39 abstained. On 12 December 2011, the NCA elected the human rights activist and CPR leader

Moncef Marzouki Mohamed Moncef Marzouki (; ''Muhammad al-Munṣif al-Marzūqī'', born 7 July 1945) is a Tunisian politician who served as the third president of Tunisia from 2011 to 2014. Through his career he has been a human rights activist, physician and pol ...

as the interim President of the Tunisian Republic. 153 delegates voted for him, three against, and 44 votes were blank. Blank votes were the result of a boycott from the opposition parties, who disagreed with the new "mini-constitution". On 14 December, one day after his accession to office, Marzouki appointed

Hamadi Jebali Hamadi Jebali (, '; born 12 January 1949) is a Tunisian engineer, politician, and journalist who was Prime Minister of Tunisia from December 2011 to March 2013. He was the Secretary-General of the Ennahda Movement, a moderate Islamic party in Tun ...

, the secretary-general of the

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

. Jebali presented his

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

on 20 December, and officially took office on 24 December. , - style="background:#E9E9E9;" ! colspan=3, Candidacy of

of the

, - style="background:#E9E9E9;" ! align="left", Choice !! Votes !! % , - , align="left", Yes check

For, , 153, , 75.7 , - , align="left", Against, , 3, , 1.5 , - , align="left", Blank, , 44, , 20.3 , - , align="left", Abstentions, , 2, , 1.0 , - style="background:#F2F2F2;" ! align="left", Total !! 202 !! 100.0 , - style="background:#F2F2F2;" , align="left", Voter turnout , colspan="2", 93.1 , - style="background:#F2F2F2;" , align="left", Electorate , colspan="2", 217 , - , colspan="3", Source: AFP

Constitution drafting process

The actual process of drafting the new constitution started on 13 February 2012. The assembly established six committees, each in charge of one of the individual themes of the constitution. The first commission was responsible for the preamble and the general principles and amendments. Each of the committees consisted of 22 lawmakers and mirrored the relative strength of the political groups in the assembly. The most crucial question was the form of government. While the Islamist Ennahda movement favoured a

parliamentary system A parliamentary system, or parliamentary democracy, is a form of government where the head of government (chief executive) derives their Election, democratic legitimacy from their ability to command the support ("confidence") of a majority of t ...

, its secular coalition partners CPR and Ettakatol, as well as most of the minor opposition parties preferred a

semi-presidential republic A semi-presidential republic, or dual executive republic, is a republic in which a president exists alongside a prime minister and a cabinet, with the latter two being responsible to the legislature of the state. It differs from a parliament ...

. The new

was passed on 26 January 2014.

Party standings

The party standings as of the election and as of 26 October 2014 were as follows: Note: ¹Split from Ennahda. ::²Split from CPR. ::³Mostly composed of former members of Popular Petition. ::⁴Split from Popular Petition. ::⁵Split from FDTL. ::⁶Merged into PR. ::⁷Merger of PDP, Afek Tounes, minor parties and independents. ::⁸Split from PDP. ::⁹Dissolved. Most members joined VDS. ::¹⁰Mostly composed of former members of PDM. ::¹¹Merged into PR. Later revived. ::¹²Founded after the 2011 election; was joined by defectors from different parties.

References

External links