Tunisians are called to the polls on Saturday December 17 to elect their deputies. An election largely boycotted by the majority of the country’s parties represented in previous terms of office, opposed to most of the initiatives that followed Kaïs Saïed’s coup on July 25, 2021.
The polling stations where more than 9 million voters are called, opened at 7 am (local time). The election takes place at the end of three weeks of a dull campaign, with very few posters of candidates in the streets and in the absence of serious debates, at a time when the population seems above all concerned about the cost of life.
A Parliament with limited powers
A new Chamber of 161 deputies (instead of 217 during previous mandates) must replace the one that Mr. Saïed froze on July 25, 2021, after months of blockages by the institutions in place since the fall of President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali , during the “Arab Spring” revolt of 2011. The Parliament resulting from the legislative elections, after a second round organized by the beginning of March, will be endowed with very limited powers under the new Constitution that Mr. Saïed had adopted this been in a referendum marked by massive abstention (nearly 70%).
Elected by uninominal ballot in two rounds and no longer on lists, the future deputies will not be able to dismiss the president, control the action of the government or censure him. It will take ten deputies to propose a law and the president will have priority to pass his own. They will not benefit from any immunity whatsoever and may be removed from office, under certain conditions, by the voters.
10% inflation
According to the Tunisian Observatory of Democratic Transition, half of the candidates (1,058) are teachers or mid-level civil servants. Women make up less than 15% of applicants, whereas previously gender parity was mandatory.
The main concern for the 12 million Tunisians remains the cost of living, with inflation nearing 10% and recurring shortages of foods such as milk and sugar. The ballot was boycotted by most parties, including the Islamist-inspired movement Ennahda, a sworn enemy of President Saïed, which dominated the dissolved Parliament for ten years. The powerful UGTT trade union center, which recently became very critical of Mr. Saïed’s policy, deemed these legislative elections unnecessary.
The coffers of the country in the red
Al Bawsala, an NGO that has been scrutinizing parliamentary activities since 2014, announced it would boycott proceedings “of a puppet Assembly” whose role would be limited, according to her, to “support the orientations of the president”. Analyst Hamish Kinnear of Verisk Maplecroft thinks the election is mostly “a tool that President Saïed uses to confer legitimacy on his monopoly of power”. He nevertheless considers that the establishment of a Parliament will “facilitate Tunisia’s relations with its main external partners, by putting an end to seventeen months of constitutional uncertainty”. It will be easier, he says, to get help from donors “thanks to a return to greater political predictability, even if the democratic legitimacy of legislative elections is weak”.
There is urgency because the coffers of the country are empty. The IMF, which was to give the green light on Monday to a fourth loan to Tunisia in ten years, of around 2 billion dollars, postponed its decision until early January at the request of the government, whose file was not completely closed, sources familiar with the matter told Agence France-Presse.