The campaign to raise awareness of the vote between the two rounds, the televised debates between the candidates and the daily SMS encouragements sent to voters all failed in their purpose. Like the first round of voting, the runoff elections on Sunday, January 29, saw ultra-low turnout with nearly 89% of the electorate opting to stay away.
This extremely low turnout confirms Tunisians' lack of interest in the elections, held against the backdrop of an increasingly severe economic downturn. Negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $1.9-billion (€1.75 billion) loan, aimed at providing temporary relief for the state's finances, are still ongoing but they could be derailed by the election results.
"The abstention rate sends out very bad signals to the international community because it creates an exaggerated view of the deep political crisis facing the country," warns political scientist Hamza Meddeb. "We've reached a deadlock. [The president] Kais Saied is now attempting populism without the people, the country is at risk of defaulting on its debts, and the opposition parties, which carry no weight, offer no real alternative," the researcher said.
'No legitimacy'
The day before the runoff elections, Moody's, the American credit rating agency, downgraded Tunisia's rating. It cited the lack of prospects for implementing reforms "in the face of governance weaknesses and [the country's] acute exposure to social risks."
Kais Saied, however, does not appear to be rattled by the outcome of the election and on Monday evening he went to the seat of government to meet with the Prime Minister, Najla Bouden. "We need to interpret the election results differently," the president said, apparently unperturbed, saying that the "ultra-low turnout" was due to the political events of the past 10 years "causing Tunisians to lose confidence in the parliamentary institution." On Monday evening, the Tunisian presidency announced the dismissal of the agriculture and education ministers and their immediate replacement.
Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, the leader of the opposition National Salvation Front coalition, said that the low turnout in the parliamentary elections means that "the new Parliament has no legitimacy." This is an opinion shared by the Islamic conservative party Ennahda, which called for the resignation of the President of the Republic in a statement issued the day after the vote. Abir Moussi, the leader of the anti-Islamic Free Destourian Party which has its foundations in the legacy of the independence president Habib Bourguiba, lashed out at "Kais Saied's loss of popular legitimacy" in a video posted on her Facebook page. The outcry from the opposition, which is struggling to mobilize beyond its ranks, has not yet been echoed on the Tunisian streets.
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