Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Voters in Tunisia will get to the polls on Saturday to elect a new parliament largely stripped of its powers, under Kais Saied’s installed hyper-presidential political system in the country.
Over a decade since a popular revolution overthrew the powerful dictator of Tunisia, opposition parties have urged a boycott of the election, which they call a part of a coup against the sole democracy to have emerged from the Arab Spring in 2011.
The vote for the new 161-seat legislature comes after the previous assembly was frozen by President Saied on 25 July 2021, following months of political crisis deepened by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The president later dissolved the parliament, which had long been dominated by his opponent Ennahdha party.
President claims people of Tunisia wanted to dissolve assembly
He on Wednesday defended his decision, saying that “all people in Tunisia, wherever I went, were demanding to dissolve the assembly”.
Talking to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington, he said “Tunisia was on the brink of civil war”.
The previous parliament has vast powers, in the presidential-cum-parliamentary system enshrined in the post-revolution constitution of the country.
In July, Saied held a severely criticized referendum to push through a new constitution, stripping parliament of real powers and accumulating almost unlimited powers in his hands.
Almost all the political parties, including Ennahdha, have announced the boycott of the election, labeling the president’s move a coup.
The powerful trade union federation UFTT has also called the vote meaningless. Over 1,058 candidates are unknown.
