TUNIS: Tunisia’s main opposition alliance leaders on Sunday said that President Kais Saied should resign immediately, a day after national voters overwhelmingly snubbed elections for a neutral parliament.
The country’s election body said that of the nine-million-strong electorate, 8.8 percent had turned out for Saturday’s polls, the culmination of a power secured by Saied in the only democracy that came into being as a result of the Arab Spring in gulf countries.
The over 91 percent abstention rate “shows that only a few Tunisians support president Kais Saied’s approach,” the president of the National Salvation Front, Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, told AFP by telephone.
Tunisia poll results
Chebbi said the result of the polls showed a “very popular disavowal” of the process that started when Kais Saied grabbed executive powers in 2021.
In July 2021, president Saied sacked the government, froze parliament, and surrounded the parliament with military vehicles, following months of the political impasse and economic crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kais Saied’s moves have sparked fears of a return to autocracy in the country.
The National Salvation Front boycotted Saturday’s polls, terming it as a part of a “coup” against democracy in Tunisia. – AFP/APP
