Tunisia opened polling stations on Sunday (January 29) for run-offs in a parliamentary election that drew only 11% turnout in the first round last month, an outcome critics of the president said undermined his claims of public support for sweeping political change.
With political parties boycotting the vote, most candidates are independents and attention is likely to focus on whether there will be higher participation than there was in December.
President Kais Saied has decreed the new, mostly powerless, parliament as part of a reconfigured presidential system that he introduced after shutting down the previous parliament in 2021 and assuming broad control over the state.
Saied’s critics accuse him of seeking to dismantle the democratic system enacted after Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, which sparked the Arab Spring, and they ridiculed December’s ultra-low turnout as evidence that his changes lack popular support.
The president says his actions have been legal and necessary to save Tunisia from years of economic stagnation and political crisis, and has accused his critics of treason, urging action against them.
