“Failure”, headlined the Maghreb newspaper on Sunday. The fiasco of the legislative elections in Tunisia, marked on Saturday by a record abstention of more than 90%, is a snub for President Kais Saied, whose opposition is demanding the departure, and who finds himself delegitimized and very weakened in his negotiations with the IMF. a crucial loan for a beleaguered economy.
The leader of the main opposition coalition Ahmed Nejib Chebbi called on the president to “resign immediately” after the announcement of a participation rate of only 8.8% in the first round of a ballot organized to renew the Parliament.
“A great popular disavowal”
This is the worst turnout in elections in Tunisia since the 2011 Revolution that ousted dictator Zine EL Abidine Ben Ali from power and brought about the first democracy in the Arab world.
The leader of the main opposition coalition in Tunisia has called on President Kais Saied to “leave immediately”. “It is a great popular disavowal for the process” started on July 25, 2021, when Kais Saied froze Parliament and dismissed his Prime Minister, seizing all powers, commented Ahmed Nejib Chebbi on Sunday.
“92% have turned their backs on its illegal process which flouts the Constitution”, continued Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, president of the National Salvation Front (FSN), which includes the Islamist-inspired movement Ennahdha, a pet peeve of Kais Saied and former majority party in Parliament during the ten years following the Tunisian Revolution of 2011.
“Overseeing a new presidential election”
He called on the other political parties to “agree on the appointment of a senior magistrate” capable of “supervising a new presidential election”.
After his coup and then the dissolution of Parliament, denounced for months as a “coup d’etat” by the opposition, President Saied had a Constitution adopted this summer by referendum which drastically reduces the prerogatives of Parliament. He also reformed the voting system used on Saturday for the legislative elections, prohibiting any political affiliation for candidates, most of whom were unknown, which, for experts, helped to lower participation.
Most of the Tunisian parties, including the Free Destourian Party of Abir Moussi (anti-Islamist opposition) also boycotted Saturday’s election.
“Stuck situation”
For political scientist Hamadi Redissi, the extremely low participation rate in the legislative elections “is unexpected because even the most pessimistic forecasts were counting on 30%” as in the referendum on the Constitution. “It is a personal disavowal for Mr. Saied who decided everything, all alone,” added the expert, believing that “his legitimacy is in question”.
However, according to this expert, “the situation is blocked” because “there is no legal mechanism to impeach the president” in the new Constitution of 2022.
The new Parliament, which will only be formed after a second round by early March, does not have this power and can, at best, censure the government. But after a long and complex process.
Saied “more isolated, from the elites, from the parties and now from the people too”
For political scientist Slaheddine Jourchi, after the fiasco of the first round of legislative elections, Kais Saied is “more isolated, from the elites, from the parties and now from the people too”.
“This rate never recorded (at such a level in an election) reflects the lack of confidence of the people. He has always availed himself of the support of the people but this turnout will be a shock, a jolt that could make him lose his balance,” said Slaheddine Jourchi.
The DSF has called for the mobilization of the various opposition forces, including through demonstrations.
A “weak and divided” opposition
But the opposition “is weak and divided”, between the secular and progressive camp on the one hand, and the FSN united around Ennahdha on the other, underlined Hamadi Redissi. There is “little chance that it will unite as long as we have not resolved the Ennahdha question”, he said, about this formation to which a good part of the Tunisians – who supported at the beginning the coup de force of Kais Saied – blamed the economic and social failures of the last decade.
The population is very worried about the continued deterioration of its conditions: galloping inflation, very high unemployment and a poverty rate that affects 4 million of the 12 million Tunisians.
The DSF was not mistaken in also qualifying as “disavowal” – international this time – the postponement by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) until early January at the earliest of a definitive agreement on a new loan of two billion dollars, requested by Tunisia and which should have been given on Monday.