Polling stations opened in Tunisia on Sunday (October 6th), where nearly 7 million voters are expected to elect their deputies in a legislative poll that could lead, in the same dynamic as the presidential election, to the rejection established parties.
These third legislative elections since the 2011 revolution are not very popular, especially because they take place between the two rounds of a presidential suspense for which two candidates "anti-system" remain in the race: Kais Saeid and Nabil Karoui, who is imprisoned.
They are nevertheless decisive in a country where Parliament is in charge of the issues of greatest concern to Tunisians: the struggling economy, entrenched unemployment, failing public services and inflation that does not fall.
To read on France 24: "We do not understand anything": in the Old Tunis, the legislative ones do not fascinate
Preliminary results are expected Wednesday, but polls should give a first trend as of Sunday night. Three weeks after the first round of the presidential election, unofficial polls suggest the arrival of a wave of independents, who represent a third of the lists in the running, and new parties.
"Abnormal" situation
More than 15,000 candidates vie for 217 seats, in a parliament previously dominated by the Islamist party Ennahdha, which had made alliance with the main party of the center, Nidaa Tounes, since decimated by power struggles.
But Ennahdha, in decline, could be preceded by the party Qalb Tounes, created less than six months ago by Nabil Karoui, a businessman from Nidaa Tounes.
Under investigation since 2017 for money laundering and tax fraud, Nabil Karoui and his detention since the end of August have largely focused the attention of Tunisians, putting the campaign for legislative elections in the background.
The date of his arrest, shortly before the presidential campaign, and its legal modalities, fueled suspicions of instrumentalization of justice. Supporters of the man dubbed "Tunisian Berlusconi" by his detractors have accused Ennahdha and demanded a postponement of the second round of presidential elections, scheduled for 13 October.
A sign of growing concern over the polls, interim President Mohammed Ennaceur said Friday that the incarceration of a candidate was "an abnormal situation" that could have "serious" repercussions on the electoral process.
The UN has called for "peaceful and transparent" elections.
A good score of Qalb Tounes in the legislative elections could be an asset for Nabil Karoui on October 13th. Kaïs Saeïd, an independent who does not represent any party, did not give him any voting instructions for Sunday.
A position that helps to blur the cards, and this political landscape without clear cleavage may demotivate an electorate already exasperated by the political maneuvers that have marked the past few months.
Many trainings have tried to respond to this exasperation by presenting new faces, such as the movement Aïch Tounsi, from civil society.
Newcomers
Another newcomer, the Karama coalition led by populist Islamist lawyer Seifeddine Makhlouf, is trying to compete with Ennahdha, who has lost part of his electorate after deciding to join the system and join forces with Nidaa Tounes.
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 presidential election.
This fragmentation between many highly divergent formations, while the party in the lead will have to convince at least 109 deputies to form a government, augurs for heated negotiations.
The leading parties, Ennahdha and Qalb Tounes, have officially excluded any alliance between them.
Once in place, the new Parliament will have two months to agree on a government that will have to tackle the daunting task of reviving an economy struggling to create jobs and reduce crippling debt.
If the terrorist threat is no longer a major issue, four years after a series of deadly attacks that had affected tourism, the democratic transition underway in the cradle of Arab revolts is weakened by deep social difficulties.
Inflation is nibbling at already low incomes, and disintegrating public services are struggling to meet the expectations of the population.
With AFP