Tunisians elect a Parliament on Saturday devoid of real powers in a vote boycotted by the opposition, the last building in the hyper-presidentialist system put in place by the head of state, Kais Saied, since his coup last year.
The new Assembly of 161 deputies will replace the one Mr. Saied had frozen on July 25, 2021, after months of political blockages in the system in place since the overthrow of the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, during the first Arab Spring revolt. in 2011.
If this chamber (finally dissolved in March) was a pole of power with vast prerogatives, the one that will emerge from the legislative elections, at the end of a second round scheduled between February and March, will be endowed with very limited powers under a new Constitution that Mr. Saied had adopted this summer during a referendum marked by massive abstention (nearly 70%).
“The goal is to achieve an agenda that was set just after the coup” by force of Mr. Saied, and to “complete the process that began on July 25”, analyzes for AFP the political scientist Hamadi Redissi.
According to him, this Parliament will have very limited powers: it will thus be “virtually impossible” to bring down the government via a motion of censure. In addition, any bill must be presented by at least 10 deputies and the texts submitted by the president will have priority.
A new single-member two-round system replaces the list system, which reduces the influence of political parties, with candidates with no declared affiliation.
“What is sought, despite all the faults of this election, is an increase in legitimacy for the presidency”, continues Mr. Redissi, referring to “a rump Parliament, without powers”.
“Political Crisis”
Almost all the political parties, first and foremost the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party — President Saied’s pet peeve, who dominated the dissolved Parliament for 10 years — boycotted the vote, denouncing a “coup d’etat against the Revolution” which gave birth to the only true democracy in the Arab world.
“We will not recognize the results of the elections,” Ahmed Néjib Chebbi, president of the National Salvation Front, a coalition of opponents of which Ennahdha is a member, told the press on Thursday, saying that these legislative elections “will push the country further into crisis. Politics “.
He expressed concern about the postponement indefinitely of the examination by the IMF – initially scheduled for December 19 – of the file of Tunisia, whose coffers are empty and which urgently needs a new credit of around 2 billion of dollars. According to Mr. Chebbi, this postponement “threatens the economic balance of the country”.
The powerful UGTT trade union center considered these elections useless.
For Mr. Redissi, the ballot also presents “a problem of representativeness” with only 122 women out of 1,058 candidates, most of whom are unknown to the general public. According to the Tunisian Observatory of Democratic Transition, half are teachers or mid-level civil servants.
One of the challenges will be participation, anticipated as very low by experts in a country with nearly 12 million inhabitants, including more than 9 million registered.
Young people told AFP that they did not feel concerned by a ballot that will elect a “puppet parliament”.
Private radio and television have echoed this disaffection.
“What happens on the political scene no longer interests me, I no longer trust anyone. The country is going from bad to worse! “, told AFP Marwa Ben Miled, a 53-year-old trader.
On social networks, some applicants are ridiculed. One of them appears in the images sitting at a table, cigar in his mouth and smelling jasmine, then giving money to two folk musicians, before the small group begins to shout pro-Saied slogans.
The president has made numerous appearances in recent days, reassuring traders in the medina of Tunis or inaugurating infrastructure.
But the population is above all concerned by the recurring shortages of milk, rice or sugar, and by inflation which is close to 10% while the country is mired in a crisis, aggravated by COVID-19 and then by the war in Ukraine.