Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/TUNIS: Tunisians are set to vote again in elections for a parliament stripped of its powers, the final pillar of Kais Saied’s presidential remake of politics in the country.
The second-round vote in Tunisia grapples with grave economic issues and deep political divisions over Saied’s actions in July 2021.
Some 262 candidates, including just 34 women, ran for 131 seats in an election whose first round the previous month saw just 11.2% of registered voters participate.
That was the lowest turnout of the national vote early in the 2011 revolt that overthrew Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
The final round comes eighteen months after Saied sacked the Tunisia government and suspended parliament, later moving to dominate the judiciary and bringing in a constitution the previous July that gave his office almost unlimited executive power.
Turnout as Tunisians Vote
Youssef Cherif, director of Columbia Global Centers in Tunis, said that Tunisians had a “lack of interest” in politics.
“This parliament could have minimal legitimacy, and the president, who is all-powerful thanks to the 2022 constitution, could be able to control it as he sees fit,” he said.
Political and Lawyer expert Hamadi Redissi said that the assembly would “not have to approve the government, nor can it censor it without a two-thirds majority” of parliament and the council of regional representatives, whose make-up has yet to be defined.
The legislature have almost nil power to hold the president to account.
During the first round, most political parties which have been sidelined by a system that bans candidates from declaring allegiance to a political grouping, called for a boycott.
On the streets of Tunis, campaigning has been muted, with few posters on the walls and few well-known candidates.
And despite Saied’s break with the traditional political class, many Tunisians are skeptical of all politicians.
