The turnout in Sunday’s presidential election was only 28.8%, the highest percentage of abstention since the advent of democracy in 2011. You can share this article by clicking on the share icons at the top of right of it.
Kais Saied was re-elected Tunisian president with 90.69% of the vote, Tunisian electoral authority ISIE announced on Monday, although the low turnout reflected widespread discontent in the cradle of pro-democracy Arab uprisings. Three years after Saied took power, rights groups fear his re-election will tighten his grip on the only democracy to emerge from the 2011 protests.
Saied, 66, won Sunday’s poll with 2.4 million votes – but with a turnout of just 28.8% of the nearly 10 million registered voters. His jailed rival Ayachi Zammel received only 7.3% and third candidate Zouhair Maghzaoui only 1.9%, ISIE head Farouk Bouasker told national television.
Critics said the low turnout reflected widespread disillusionment with the election. On Sunday, ISIE reported that only 6% of voters were aged 18 to 35, a category that made up a third of initially eligible voters. After the fall of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, Tunisia boasted of being the cradle of regional uprisings against authoritarianism, known as the “Arab Spring”. But the trajectory of the North African country changed dramatically after Saied was elected in 2019 with 73% of the votes. Two years later, he dissolved the Parliament and then rewrote the Constitution.
