(Tunis) Tunisians shunned the ballot box on Saturday when they were called upon to renew their Parliament, a ballot wanted by President Kais Saied to put an end to the process initiated by his July 2021 coup.
A new Assembly of 161 deputies, with very limited powers, must replace the one that Mr. Saied had frozen on July 25, 2021 (then dissolved in early 2022), arguing that the democratic institutions in place since the fall of dictator Ben Ali in 2011, during the Arab Spring revolt.
Confirming an observation by AFP correspondents in Tunis and the region, the president of the Isie electoral authority, Farouk Bouasker, announced only “656,915 voters, or 7.19% of those registered at 3 p.m.” (9 a.m. East), three hours before closing.
The final participation is likely to be even lower than the 30.5% of voters in the referendum organized last summer to revise the Constitution.
However, the president had left his palace in Carthage, soon after the opening at 2 a.m. (Eastern time) of the offices, to vote and mobilize the 9 million voters. “This is a historic opportunity to regain your legitimate rights,” he said.
The main parties are boycotting this vote for which Mr. Saied has imposed a two-round single-member voting system, where candidates cannot display their affiliation.
Accusing Mr. Saied of “dictatorial drift”, the National Salvation Front, a coalition of opponents dominated by the Islamist-inspired movement Ennahdha which controlled Parliament for 10 years, had already boycotted the referendum on the Constitution.
Another factor fueling disaffection: the candidates (1055), half of whom are teachers or middle-level civil servants, are mostly unknown, and less than 12% are women in a country committed to parity.
Even the powerful UGTT trade union center deemed these legislative elections unnecessary.
“Murdered”
Salima Bahri, a 21-year-old student met by AFP in the suburbs of Tunis, does not vote because “there is no choice to be made, in the absence of political parties”.
In the provinces, the atmosphere was just as gloomy.
In Kasserine (center), a deprived region near Sidi Bouzid where the 2011 Revolution broke out, Abed Jabbar Boudhiafi, 59, voted “out of electoral duty”, hoping that “this will change the political and economic situation”.
Mohammed Jraidi, 40, shuns the ballot box: “I don’t trust the political class. They made us guinea pigs for all sorts of elections while things are going from bad to worse economically and socially”.
Further south in Gafsa, Aicha Smari, 46, says she voted “driven by the anniversary date of December 17” 2010 when young vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire after having his fruit and vegetable cart confiscated. , triggering the Tunisian Revolution.
Abstentionist, Abdel Kader Tlijani, 55, judges that successive governments “have murdered the Revolution and our dreams”.
After a second round by early March, the Assembly of Deputies will have very limited prerogatives under the Constitution adopted last July.
Parliament will not be able to impeach the president and it will be virtually impossible for it to censure the government. It will take ten deputies to propose a law and the president will have priority to pass his own.
“Legitimacy”
“This vote is a formality to complete the political system imposed by Kais Saied and concentrate power in his hands,” political scientist Hamza Meddeb told AFP.
“Tunisians know that Parliament will be stripped of all power,” he said.
The main concern of the 12 million Tunisians remains the high cost of living, with inflation of nearly 10% and recurring shortages of milk, sugar or rice.
The ballot is “a tool that President Saied uses to legitimize his monopoly of power,” said analyst Hamish Kinnear of Verisk Maplecroft.
But the establishment of a Parliament will allow, according to him, “a return to greater political predictability” and will make it easier for Tunisia to obtain aid from foreign donors.
Tunisia, whose coffers are bloodless, has requested a new loan of 2 billion dollars from the IMF, which conditions a whole series of other foreign aid.