Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: Tunisian opposition has asked President Kais Saied to resign after fewer than 9 percent of the eligible voters took part in the parliamentary elections.
Nejib Chebbi, head of The National Salvation Front said that Saturday’s election was a “fiasco”, calling for mass protests to demand snap presidential elections. The vote was boycotted by most of the opposition parties. The opposition parties accuse Saied of reversing the democratic progress in the country made since the 2011 uprising — a charge he denies, BBC reported.
Tunisian fiasco
Saied dismissed the premier and suspended parliament in July 2021. A year later, he enshrined his one-man rule through the constitution after a vote that was also boycotted by the main opposition alliance. The new constitution replaced the one drafted soon after the Arab Spring in 2011. The new constitution saw Tunisia overthrow late dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. It also ensured full executive control for the head of state and supreme command of the army.
Kais Saied, a former law professor, has been in power since 2019. His supporters believe that the impoverished North African nation needs a strong leader to deal with corruption and other major issues that are an obstacle in the country’s development. Electoral officials in Tunisia said late on Saturday that 8.8 percent of the roughly nine-million-strong electorate had voted in the parliamentary polls. The National Salvation Front, a coalition of several political parties, also called for sit-ins and mass rallies as part of their protest campaign against the President. President Saied has so far made no public comments on the issue.
