President calls for massive turnout as Tunisia holds first elections since 2011 Arab uprisings
Tunisia held its first free municipal elections yesterday as voters expressed frustration at the slow pace of change since the 2011 revolution in the cradle of the Arab uprisings.
The election has been touted as another milestone on the road to democracy in the North African country, which has been praised for its transition from decades of dictatorship.
But Tunisia has struggled with persistent political, security and economic problems as well as corruption since the revolution, and observers expected a low turnout for yesterday’s poll.
At a polling station in the capital, Ridha Kouki, 58, acknowledged that voting was a right and a duty but said Tunisians had little hope of any change.
Chokri Halaoui, 45, said he wanted to send a “message to politicians to tell them ‘we have voted, now show us what you can do’.”
Two hours after polling began, turnout was about 4.5 per cent, the election commission said.
Tunisians have already voted in parliamentary and presidential elections since the 2011 fall of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, but municipal polls had been delayed four times because of logistic, administrative and political deadlocks.
President Beji Caid Essebsi has called for a “massive turnout”.
“For the first time since the revolution, the Tunisian people are called to participate in municipal elections, something that seems simple but it is very important,” Mr Essebsi said on Friday.
Casting his ballot yesterday, he again urged Tunisians to vote, saying “democracy cannot be imposed but must be exercised”.
Rached Ghannouchi, head of the Muslim Ennahdha movement, also urged a large turnout by “young Tunisian voters”, but he admitted that politicians “don’t hold all the keys to progress”.
Tunisia is grappling with economic challenges including an inflation rate of about 8 per cent and an unemployment rate of more than 15 per cent.
The country was hit by protests at the start of the year over an austerity budget introduced by the government.
“These municipal elections won’t change anything for us,” said housewife Hilma, 34. “We will always be on the same cart without wheels or a horse.”
More than 57,000 candidates, half of them women and young people, are running for office in Tunisia’s 350 municipalities.
About 60,000 police and military personnel have been mobilised for the polls, while Tunisia remains under a state of emergency imposed in 2015 after a string of deadly attacks.
European parliament vice president Fabio Castaldo, head of an EU monitoring delegation, said the election was “an important step for the country’s stability”.
Voting ran until 6pm in more than 11,000 polling stations across the country.
But in Sidi Bouzid, cradle of the 2011 revolution, and the neighbouring region of Kasserine in central Tunisia, a hotbed of protests during the revolt, polling stations opened later and closed earlier for “security reasons”, organisers said.
In December 2010, street seller Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire and later died of his injuries in Sidi Bouzid, in a protest over unemployment and police harassment that sparked the Arab uprisings.