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Low turnout hobbles Tunisia’s second round of parliamentary polls

Turnout was just 11.3 percent of Tunisia's 8 million voters, according to estimates from the national electoral commission — about the same level of participation as in the first round of voting last month.

Reuters

Many disaffected Tunisians stayed away from Sunday's polls, while the Ennahdha party and other opposition movements boycotted it.

Tunisia has announced that a mere 11 percent of the electorate had voted in parliamentary runoffs, with critics of President Kais Saied saying the empty polling stations were evidence of public disdain for his agenda.

The head of the electoral commission, over which Saied assumed ultimate authority last year, gave a provisional turnout of 11.3 percent for Sunday's runoff votes.

During December's first round, the official turnout was only slightly lower, at 11.2 percent.

"Today Tunisians issued a final verdict rejecting Kais Saied's process and elections," Nejib Chebbi, head of the main opposition coalition, the Salvation Front, told a news conference.

Opposition activist Chaima Issa, who has led protests against Saied and faces a military court on charges of insulting the president, described the poll as a "ghost election".

Economic decline in Tunisia, where some basic goods have disappeared from shelves and the government has cut subsidies as it seeks a foreign bailout to avert bankruptcy, has left many disillusioned with politics and angry with their leaders.

"We don't want elections. We want milk and sugar and cooking oil," said Hasna, a woman shopping in the Ettadamon district of Tunis on Sunday.

Weakened parliament

The newly configured parliament has had its role shrunk as part of a political system Saied introduced last year after a power grab in 2021 that grants the presidency nearly absolute power.

About 887,000 voters cast ballots from a total electorate of 7.8 million, the electoral commission said. The main parties boycotted the vote and most seats are expected to go to independents.

Independent observers, including the local Mourakiboun group, have questioned official turnout figures, accusing authorities in many districts of withholding data they rely on to monitor the election's integrity.

The commission denied this and said polling station officials had been too busy to cooperate with monitors.

Opposition groups have accused Saied of a coup for shutting down the previous parliament in 2021, and say he has dismantled the democracy built after Tunisia's 2011 revolution - which triggered the "Arab Spring".

Saied has said his actions were both legal and necessary to save Tunisia from years of corruption and economic decline at the hands of a self-interested political elite.

Though his new constitution passed in a referendum last year, only 30 percent of voters took part.