The turnout in the legislative elections held this Saturday in Tunisia was 8.8 percent at the close of polling stations, according to official data from the Tunisian Independent Higher Electoral Authority, on a day marked by the opposition’s call for abstention.
The president of the Independent Higher Electoral Authority, Faruk Buaskar, has been in charge of giving the official data of participation corresponding to 18.00 hours, the scheduled closing time of the polling stations, with some 803,000 participants, according to the Tunisian radio station Mosaique FM.
Buaskar attributed this low turnout to the absence of foreign funding for corrupt political movements and the lack of public resources, as well as recent changes in electoral legislation.
This turnout figure is the lowest since the so-called Arab Spring in 2011 brought about profound political change in Tunisia after decades of autocratic rule. The vote also coincides with the 12th anniversary of the death of street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, whose death after setting himself on fire in protest against police abuses triggered the wave of protests that shook the entire region.
These early legislative elections are the first since the country adopted a new Constitution, promoted by the president, Kais Saied, after arrogating to himself in 2021 all powers and amidst opposition denunciations of his authoritarian drift, culminating in the opposition boycott of the elections.
Saied announced in July 2021 the dissolution of the Government and the suspension of the Parliament, subsequently dissolved, in the framework of what he described as a response to the protests due to the political and economic crisis, unleashing the criticism of the Islamist party Ennahda -majority in the legislative body- and other formations and provoking alarm among several civil organizations.
Opponents, such as the former deputy of the Islamist party Enhadda Saida Ounissi, have assured the pan-Arab channel that the low turnout in the parliamentary elections is an «important confirmation» of the disinterest of the majority of Tunisians towards the political road map launched by Saied.
«Numbers cannot lie and today was one of the biggest trials to see if the population supports the whole process after the coup of 2021,» he added before denouncing the disconnect between the concerns of the President of the Republic and the expectations of the majority of the population.
«People are concerned about economic problems and social reforms. It is not a problem of institutions or a problem of politics, it is about making economic decisions and this is the conversation we should be having in Tunisia and we are not having in this authoritarian context,» he has lamented.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
