According to Tunisia’s Independent High Authority for Elections, which was appointed by President Kais Saied in May, 803,638 of the 9,136,502 registered voters had cast their ballots by 6pm on Saturday, after the closure of ballot stations in a majority of constituencies.
The electoral commission’s 8.8 per cent turnout rate across Tunisia was announced making it official.
According to Farouk Bouasker, president of ISIE, the electoral law does not stipulate a minimum threshold for the validation of these results, so we will proceed as usual.
According to Mr. Bouasker, the low turnout rate was due to the absence of “corrupt political money”, which he described as “pure and legitimate” today’s vote.
It was reported that Tunisia’s High Electoral Authority member Mohamed Tlili Mnasser said earlier that constituencies with only one candidate would have winners announced automatically. This means that even the 400 votes rule that was needed to accept candidacies would not be applied this time.
If two or more candidates receive the same number of votes in a particular district, a second round of parliamentary elections will be required.
Certain individuals were attempting to pay people to vote, or to break the country’s electoral silence rule, according to civil organisations monitoring the elections, such as Mourakiboun and Shahed Observatory.
Prior to the creation of Tunisia’s new electoral law, which was written exclusively by President Kais Saied and then ratified through a poorly understood referendum, voters cast ballots for individual candidates rather than party lists.
An official state delegation from Russia and the African delegation Nouvelle Perspective were among the observers monitoring Tunisia’s parliamentary elections.
Everything appears to be going well, we are accustomed to observing elections in Tunisia here,” said Louis Du Caca, a member of the Nouvelle Perspective African delegation, in reference to the low voter turnout at the Rue de Marseille School ballot station.
Image Credit: Fethi Belaid/AFP
