The leader of the opposition National Salvation Front, Ahmed Neyib Chebi, has called on Tunisian President Kais Saied to step down after the «fiasco» of the second round of the parliamentary elections, again marked by an abstention rate of close to 90 percent.
Chebi underlined after the vote, boycotted by the opposition, that the participation rate, around eleven percent, «shows that very few support Saied’s process», as reported by the Tunisian state news agency, TAP.
Thus, he stressed that the low turnout in the elections, which in the first round was below ten percent, represents a «popular disavowal» of the initiatives carried out by Saied since he decided in July 2021 to arrogate to himself all the powers after dissolving the government and suspending the parliament, subsequently dissolved.
Saied has since pushed through a series of measures to reform Tunisia’s political system, including a constitutional referendum, approved amid opposition boycott, which strengthens the powers of the presidency. The opposition has denounced an authoritarian drift of the president and has demanded his resignation.
It has therefore stressed that the president must «leave office immediately» after these «catastrophic results», while reiterating that the solution to the crisis lies in «a new political leadership».
For his part, the president of the Tunisian electoral commission, Faruk Buasker, has revealed the filing of lawsuits for defamation and dissemination of false information on social networks against several opponents who have criticized the body, as reported by the Tunisian radio station Mosaique FM.
Some 262 candidates, including only 34 women, are running for 131 seats for an election in whose first round last month saw only 11.2 percent of registered voters participate and amid calls for total political reform of the current system imposed by Saied.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
