Millions of Tunisians on Saturday boycotted an election for a new parliament which will have almost no authority following a power grab by President Kais Saied.
Electoral board president Farouk Bouasker said that only 8.8 percent of the nine-million-strong electorate had cast votes as of 6:00 pm, when the polls closed.
This is the least participation in any poll since the revolution. Opposition groups boycotted the election, saying it was part of a “coup” against the only democracy to have emerged from the Arab spring and 2011 uprisings across the region.
Bouasker acknowledged turnout was “modest” but said it could be explained by “the absence of foreign financing, in contrast to previous elections”.
Preliminary results are expected Monday, “This was the cleanest election, with no vote-buying,” he said.
The National Salvation Front, the main opposition alliance which includes Ennahdha, said the poor turnout as “seismic” and called on the president to bring all political forces together for consultations.
The polls followed three weeks of barely noticeable campaigning, with few posters in the streets and no serious public debate.
The poll comes almost a year and a half since Saied suspended parliament and sent military vehicles to surround it, after months of political stalemate and economic crisis exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.
