Tunisia uncertainty after election snub, calls for President Kais Saied to quit
- Tunisian opposition figures call for president’s resignation after disastrous parliamentary elections where 8.8 per cent of voters cast ballots
- Mass voter disavowal was a dramatic development for the country that was the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings
Tunisia plunged into political uncertainty Sunday after voters overwhelming snubbed elections for a neutered parliament, as the main opposition alliance called on President Kais Saied to “leave immediately”.
The move comes as Saied’s government negotiates a nearly US$2-billion package from the International Monetary Fund to bail out the North African country’s crippled public finances.
The electoral board said 8.8 per cent of the nine-million-strong electorate had turned out for Saturday’s polls, the culmination of a power grab by Saied in the only democracy to have emerged from the Arab spring uprisings.
Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, president of the National Salvation Front alliance, said Saied had “lost all legal legitimacy”.
An abstention rate of more than 91 per cent “shows that very, very few Tunisians support Kais Saied’s approach”, Chebbi told Agence France-Presse.
He said the result showed “great popular disavowal” of the process that began when Saied, elected in 2019, seized executive powers last year.