Tunisia’s president is pushing an ominous constitution

life Kais Saied might have flunked himself for turning in such shoddy work. Once a constitutional-law professor with a reputation for exactitude, now Tunisia’s president, Mr Saied gave himself a big homework assignment this year: draft a new constitution. As with many a group project, it got going late, leaving his fellow authors just a month to overhaul the existing national charter. He finally released the text hours before a self-imposed deadline, only to admit a week later that it contained mistakes.On July 25th Tunisians will mark his handiwork in a referendum. Or, rather, some will: the ballot was scheduled for a long holiday weekend in sweltering midsummer, not a time when many people like to queue at polling stations.