Tunisians show low turnout in local elections

Tunisians largely shunned the second round of local elections on Sunday, which were boycotted by the opposition and organized to further President Kais Saied's political project. Saied has held full powers for the past two and a half years.

The voter turnout in the runoff polling stations reached 12.44%, with 4.2 million eligible voters (out of a population of 12 million), following an 11.66% participation rate in the first round on December 24, announced the electoral authority, ISIE.

An expert in constitutional law, Saied was democratically elected in October 2019 for a five-year term.

However, on July 25, 2021, he granted himself full powers by dismissing his prime minister and freezing the parliament. A referendum in the summer of 2022 modified the constitution, establishing a new system with two chambers possessing limited powers: the Assembly of the Representatives of the People (ARP) and a National Council of Regions and Districts.

This constitutional amendment transformed Tunisia from a parliamentary regime into an ultra-presidential system.

The ARP assumed its duties in the spring of 2023 after legislative elections that were boycotted by the opposition and had very low voter turnout (11%).

The second chamber's inauguration is scheduled for April 2024, following a complex process of voting and random selection. This Council will mainly deliberate on the state budget and regional development projects, but experts fear conflicts between the two chambers in the absence of organized collaboration rules.

In addition to the 2,155 elected local counselors, 279 individuals with disabilities will be chosen by lot from around a thousand candidates. In the next stage, regional counselors will be randomly selected from among the local elected officials, who will then vote among themselves to select district counselors. Regional and district counselors will then vote to choose the 77 members of the second chamber.

The opposition has called for a boycott of what it considers an "illegal" and "imposed" vote by President Saied to complete his "authoritarian" process.

Since the spring of 2023, the main opposition figures have been imprisoned, including the leader of the Islamic-conservative party, Rached Ghannouchi, and the president of the Free Destourian Party, Abir Moussi, who is nostalgic for the dictatorships of independence hero Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, ousted during the Arab Spring in January 2011.