The Tunisians voted Sunday without much enthusiasm to elect a Parliament that promises to be broken into a multitude of formations, most novices, auguring stormy negotiations to form a government.
The offices closed at 18:00 local time (17:00 GMT), without the Tunisian institutions nor European observers noticing a major incident. By mid-day, turnout had reached only 23.5 percent, according to the election authority (Isie), estimating this figure "respectable", although it bodes for less participation than in 2014.
This lack of enthusiasm for the third election since the fall of the dictatorship in 2011 is explained by the rejection of the current elites, already expressed in the first round of the presidential election on September 15, but also by the electoral calendar, shaken by the death of the President Beji Caid Essebsi in July.
The poll took place between the two rounds of a shocking presidential election that brought two candidates to break in the second round: Kaïs Saïed, a jurist with no partisan structure, and Nabil Karoui, founder of the Qalb Tounes movement ("Heart of Tunisia "), currently imprisoned.
Karoui announces that his party is in the lead
Three weeks after the first round of the presidential election that has swept the leavers, the unofficial polls evoke the arrival of a wave of independents, who represent a third of the lists in the running, and new formations. Nabil Karoui has already indicated Sunday after the closure of polling stations that his party was leading the legislative elections. Official results are expected Wednesday.
Many new faces are expected to come to Parliament, a key institution to address the main concerns of Tunisians: continued inflation, high unemployment and public services no longer meeting expectations.
This crumbling, while the party in the lead will have to convince at least 109 deputies to form a government, augurs for heated negotiations. "The negotiations will probably take weeks," said political analyst Youssef Cherif, citing the risk of a new vote if the members can not agree.
The leading party will have two months to win a majority in Parliament, the President of the Republic - to be elected on October 13 - intervening only in case of blockage at the end of this period.
The presidential line of sight
A good score of Qalb Tounes in the legislative elections could be an asset for Mr. Karoui on October 13th. Under investigation since 2017 for money laundering and tax evasion, he has been in detention since the end of August. Deploring an instrumentalization of justice, his supporters called for postponement of the second round of the presidential election.
These twists have focused attention and fueled concerns about the smooth running of the electoral process, crucial to consolidate democratic gains. For his part, Mr. Said, who came first in the first round, gave no instructions for the legislative.
But Ennahdha, the Islamist-inspired party that dominated the outgoing Parliament, gave him strong support, portraying himself as the party likely to carry his agenda to Parliament, hoping to recapture alienated bases through his unnatural alliance with the victorious party in 2014, Nidaa Tounes. The score of its leader, Rached Ghannouchi, candidate for the first time, will be scrutinized.
A new formation, Karama, led by the populist Islamist lawyer Seifeddine Makhlouf has tried to present itself as an ally to Mr. Saied, competing with Ennahdha. At the other end, the Free Destourian Party, led by anti-Islamist lawyer Abir Moussi, could score better than the 4% of its leader in the first round of the presidential election.