Tunisian legislative elections: What is behind the country’s ‘poorest’ turnout?

Tunisian President Kais Saied’s “reform” efforts in the legislative authority have received a bitter blow delivered by about 92% of voters who boycotted the legislative elections, which the authorities said were “impartial and clean,” while opposition leaders described the elections as a “fiasco” and called for Saied to step down.

Only a total of 1,025,418 voters out of 9,136,502 million people cast their ballots in the election on Saturday, December 17, registering the poorest turnout ever in Tunisian history at 11.22%, according to the final results announced by Tunisian Independent High Authority for Elections Chairperson Farouk Bouasker in a press conference on Monday evening.

He said that the committee annulled the results of some candidates’ results due to irregularities they committed to garner more votes.

Bouasker added that the run-off, due next month, will convene for more than 133 electoral districts nationwide, as only 21 candidates won, according to Reuters, and the candidates must garner 50% of the votes plus one.

Defending the low turnout at a press conference held on Saturday evening after announcing the initial turnout following the vote, Bouasker attributed the reasons behind this to the change of the polling system that was laid by President Saied in mid-September and “the lack of the political finance that was used in purchasing the votes in the previous election.”

Polling stations opened for the voters on Saturday morning to choose 161 individual candidates out of 1,055 nominees (including 122 women) for the new parliament, after the new election law shrank the number of seats from 217 to 161.

On September 15, the Tunisian president issued a decree amending the election law to be only an individual voting system, not the party list voting system, as a way to get rid of the Ennahda movement, the Tunisian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. As a result, major opposition political parties, not only Ennhada, announced their boycott of the elections.

The amendments also prohibited funding political campaigns with public money and limited the matter to private funding.

Calls to step down

The major opposition political parties, including the National Salvation Front and Afek Tounes, called for Saied to step down, saying that his legitimacy is over and he has to leave his post.

In reference to the initially reported low turnout of 8.8%, the head of the National Salvation Front, Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, said in a press conference on Saturday that the election was “an 8.8-magnitude earthquake,” and he called for holding an early presidential election and appointing an impartial judge for a transitional period until electing a new president.

Chebbi doubted the accuracy of announced percentage of the vote, noting that it could be less than that figure, while Shaimaa Issa, a member of the Front, said in the press conference that the turnout percentage did not exceed 3%.

Meanwhile, the head of Afek Tounes, Fadhel Abdelkefi, called on Saied to stop the “farce election” that wastes the time, effort and money of the Tunisian people and to listen to the people’s message without “arrogance or denial.”

In a recorded speech on his Facebook page, Abdelkefi also demanded the establishment of an economic emergency government, calling on the president to announce an early presidential election.

“The message became clear to Kias Saied’s system, to his unilateral decision system. The system of a one-man show. What we have reached is a catastrophic situation,” he said.

As for Ennahda, Saied’s main foe, the movement said in a statement on Sunday that the people’s refusal to participate in the “electoral farce” was decisive because it lacked legitimacy, besides the frustration and despair that Tunisian people are experiencing “due to the low purchasing power, high prices, vital materials and the spread of unemployment.”

“The boycott of more than 90 percent of the citizens of this futile path means withdrawing confidence from Kais Saied, his system, and his chaotic project that relies on autocracy,” the movement added.

On July 25, 2021, Saied announced a bunch of exceptional procedures, including the suspension of the parliament as per Article 80 of the 2014 constitution. One month later, he extended the suspension of the parliament indefinitely.

Lack of trust amid economic crisis

“The people have lost confidence in the entire political class, at top of which is the opposition, including the Ennahda movement that was in power from the end of 2011 to July 2021,” said Souissi Mounir, a Tunisian journalist and political expert, in comments to Jusoor Post.

“The main reason is frustration and disappointment that shrouded the Tunisians over the black decade [the tenure of the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia from 2011 to2021], during which the Tunisian people did not achieve any economic or social achievement. On the contrary, the standard of living declined catastrophically, public services deteriorated, and corruption became endemic,” he said.

Mounir said that over this decade, the country witnessed a remarkable escalation of terrorist operations that claimed the lives of dozens of security and army personnel and injured others, in addition to killing dozens of western tourists and assassinating the main opponents of the Ennahda movement. He added that thousands of young people in Tunisia joined military groups in Syria and Iraq and then returned home with their terrorist ideologies to carry out their own terrorist operations. Also, the civil war in neighboring Libya has affected the Tunisians' official commercial exchanges between the two countries, smuggling increased and Tunisian products in the western part of Libya declined in favor of Turkish products.

As a result, Mounir said that poverty and unemployment rose to record levels (15.3% in 2020 and 16.8% in 2021, respectively, according to Statista), adding that the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine have exacerbated the situation.

He noted that the state is unable to curb this “amid the loss of basic materials in the market like medicines, sugar, vegetable oils, milk, and sometimes fuels such as gasoline,” adding that “the thing that people care about the most is to find food at affordable prices and to provide basic life items.”

Furthermore, “the people are also frustrated with Saied’s performance, because he did little for his country although he has all the powers since he overthrew the corrupt system of government that ruled the country before July 25, 2021. He did nothing when it came to the high prices,” Mounir added.

In response to a question about whether the run-off would witness another poor turnout, Mounir said that the majority of people aren’t aware there will be run-off, as “the thing that the people care about the least is politics.”

Who is behind the worsening situation in Tunisia?

Mounir said that there are four factors behind the worsening economic and social situations in the country. First of all is the political parties that are partners in successive governments, especially Ennahda and its allies. For instance, he continued, when Ennahda dominated the parliament, it ratified a law during the era of late President Beji Caid Essebsi suspending judicial pursuit for senior state employees involved in corruption.

The second factor is “agents” who made fortunes from smuggling and tax evasion and finance political parties in exchange for providing them with political protection and issuing tailor-made laws, Mounir continued.

Thirdly, he said that “some of the trade unions are partners in corruption and have destroyed the economy as a result of labor strikes,” adding that they care more about pay raises than productivity.

“The fourth or final element is private-owned media outlets of TVs, radio stations, online platforms, etc. that have ties to political parties and businessmen,” he said, adding, “They are pouring fuel on the fire.”

Mounir noted that Saied only did two good things, namely getting rid of Ennahda without shedding blood and sacking “corrupt judges”. However, he added that “we didn't see anything other than that” to make people participate in the political scene and vote.