TUNIS (Reuters) – Low turnout in Tunisia’s general election on Saturday underscores the need to push for greater political integration in the coming months, a US State Department spokesman said on Sunday.
These legislative elections were to mark the last stage in the country’s transformation into an ultra-presidential regime under the leadership of President Kaïs Saïed.
Only 8.8% of voters went to the polls on Saturday for the runoff – about 803,000 voters out of nine million -, the opposition has called for a boycott.
After the elections, the opposition called for the resignation of President Kaïs Saïed, believing that he had lost all legitimacy given the low turnout.
“The general election … is an essential first step toward restoring the nation’s democratic trajectory,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.
“However, the low voter turnout reinforces the need to further broaden political integration in the coming months,” he added.
The opposition denounces the authoritarian drift of Kaïs Saïed, who last year suspended the previous Parliament and who this summer approved a new Constitution which confirms the almost full powers of the Head of State.
(Report Tarek Amara, French version Matthieu Protard)
