Dismal election turnout puts Tunisia president's legitimacy under spotlight: Analysis - SABC News - Breaking news, special reports, world, business, sport coverage of all South African current events. Africa's news leader.

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The ultra-low turnout of 8.8% in Tunisia’s parliamentary election on Saturday may prove a defining moment in the struggle between President Kais Saied and a fragmented but increasingly confident opposition that accuses him of a coup.

A man votes at a polling station during parliamentary election in Tunis, Tunisia.

“After 90% of Tunisians abstained there is no doubt that Saied’s project was largely rejected. Now the options are limited for a president who can no longer constantly sing of legitimacy in the way he used to,” said Ahmed Idriss, head of the Tunis Institute for Politics. Until now, Saied’s project to remake the political system has relied on the popular legitimacy he claims from a landslide 2019 election victory against a media mogul facing corruption charges and the spontaneous street celebrations when he shut down parliament.

On Saturday night the main opposition coalition said for the first time that his presidency was no longer legitimate and called for elections to replace him. A rival opposition party said the same. Tunisia’s army has historically abjured a political role and Saied has not yet tested the security forces by trying to mobilise them for a major crackdown on dissent.Many of its leaders are unpopular because of the corruption, political paralysis and economic stagnation when they were in government. It is divided among factions that despise each other as much as they do Saied. And it has not shown it can mobilise the mass street protests it says it wants.

 

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