(Tunis) The fiasco of the legislative elections in Tunisia, marked by an abstention of more than 90%, is a snub for President Kais Saied, whose opposition demanded the departure on Sunday and who finds himself very weak in his negotiations with the IMF for a crucial loan.
The leader of the main opposition coalition, Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, called on the president to “resign immediately”, facing a turnout of just 8.8% on Saturday in the first round.
This is the lowest rate since the 2011 revolution that ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from power and brought about the first democracy in the Arab world.
“It’s a great popular disavowal for the process” started on July 25, 2021, when Kais Saied froze Parliament and sacked his prime minister, seizing all powers, Chebbi told AFP.
Tunisians “have turned their backs on its illegal process”, continued Mr. Chebbi, the president of the National Salvation Front (FSN), which includes the Islamist-inspired movement Ennahdha, Mr. Saied’s pet peeve and former party. majority in Parliament until the summer of 2021.
He called on the other political parties to “agree on the appointment of a senior magistrate”, capable of “supervising a new presidential election”.
This electoral fiasco will complicate, according to the DSF, negotiations between Tunisia and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan of nearly 2 billion dollars, which the highly indebted country urgently needs.
These legislative elections represent the final point in the construction of a hyper-presidentialist system by President Saied, elected in 2019, with the election of a Parliament deprived of most of its powers after a constitutional revision this summer.
So far critical of the process launched by Mr. Saied, the United States described Sunday the holding of this election as “an essential first step towards restoring the democratic trajectory of the country”.
Although, according to the US State Department, the strong abstention “reinforces the need to further broaden political participation in the coming months”.
The new voting system prohibited any political affiliation for most often unknown candidates, which contributed to a drop in turnout, according to experts.
The FSN and most of the other political formations, including the Free Destourian Party of Abir Moussi (anti-Islamist), also boycotted the vote. Another strong opponent, Mme Moussi also demanded the resignation of Mr. Saied.
“Stuck situation”
The very low rate “is a personal disavowal for Mr. Saied who decided on his own”, analyzed political scientist Hamadi Redissi, believing that “his legitimacy is in question”.
However, “the situation is blocked” because “there is no legal mechanism to impeach the president” in the new Constitution, he told AFP.
The new Parliament, which will only be formed after a second round by early March, does not have this power and can, at best, censure the government, but after a complex process.
For political scientist Slaheddine Jourchi, “this rate reflects the lack of confidence of the people”.
Still, the opposition “is weak and divided” between the secular and progressive camp on the one hand, and the FSN united around Ennahdha on the other, according to Mr. Redissi.
There is “little chance that it will unite until the Ennahdha question is resolved”, he said, about this formation to which a good part of Tunisians attribute the economic and social failures of the last decade.
The low turnout comes from the fact that “the people are angry about the economic situation and the high cost of living”, according to Hamdi Belgacem, a 37-year-old unemployed man interviewed in the street on Sunday.
“He promised us investments and he didn’t keep his promises. He promised us a lot of things that he didn’t keep,” he said, stressing that he had supported Mr. Saied’s coup last year.
Abdelsalem, a 70-year-old retiree, also includes the “citizens who boycotted the election” because “they are destitute, poor, unemployed and think of illegal migration”.