Tunis: The third-largest party in Tunisia's constituent assembly proposed on Monday a draft document based on Islamic law which will likely alarm the country's secularists.
The moderate Islamist Al Nahda party won a 40 per cent share in the assembly, or 89 seats, in Tunisia's first election since the ouster of Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali a year ago sparked the Arab Spring uprisings.
The non-religious Conference for the Republic won 29 seats in the 217-seat House and Aridha Shaabia, or Popular List, was third.
Implications
Should the proposal win the support of more than 60 per cent of parliamentarians, it will pass without a referendum.
The proposal is certain to inflame political tensions in Tunisia, where secularists already fear the Al Nahda-led government will slowly change the character of law and society. Al Nahda has sought to assure secularists that it has no intention of enforcing Islamic rules, but it has struggled to control extreme conservatives who have been outspoken in their demands that religion play a greater role in public life.
Al Nahda has yet to make clear its position on the role of religion in lawmaking and there appears to be splits within the organisation itself over an issue that could prove explosive in a country long considered one of the Arab world's most liberal.
Popular List leader Hashmi Hamdi was once a supporter of Al Nahda but later fell out with the group. Its seats in the assembly were cancelled last year over campaign finance violations but were later reinstated.
The proposal will put the Al Nahda-led government in an awkward position where it risks angering more conservative members if it rejects naming Sharia as a principal source of legislation but risks angering its secular coalition allies if it accepts the idea.
"The public that voted for us is a conservative public that wants Islamic Sharia as a principal source of the constitution," Hamdi told Reuters by phone from London. "I also want to break this psychological barrier that has left some politicians afraid to declare their opinion that Islamic Sharia should be a principal source of legislation."
Draft: Islamist emphasis
The draft document stipulates in its first Article that Tunisia is a free, independent and sovereign country, Islam is its religion and the principal source of its legislation, Arabic is its language and its system is a republic.
"Using Islamic Sharia as a principal source of legislation will guarantee freedom, justice, social equality, consultation, human rights and the dignity of all its people, men and women," it adds.
