Tunisia: Free Destourian Party files complaint to block parliamentary election

The Free Destourian Party has announced that it has filed an urgent judicial complaint to stop the course of the upcoming parliamentary election, Al-Quds Al-Arabi has reported. The party posted details on its Facebook page.

It has appealed to the Court of First Instance in Tunis to stop the legislative election scheduled for 17 December, and asked for a freeze of the funding for the election process allocated to the Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE). The party alleges that the process is flawed.

“The ISIE has not received any candidacy application in seven out of 161 constituencies,” it explained. “Implementing the election process without receiving candidacy applications in all constituencies is a serious precedent, which confirms that citizens are not involved in the state crime committed by [President] Kais Saied.” This, explained the party, will produce a defective, unstructured parliament which is inconsistent with the [presidential] decree revising the electoral law on which these elections are based. “Not least because the aforementioned decree does not stipulate any way to resolve the lack of candidacy applications to cover all constituencies.”

The party pointed out that there are “serious inaccuracies presented by the president and members of the ISIE to cover up the illegitimacy of this election by convincing the public that it is permissible to organise partial votes after electing a defective council.”

This, said the Free Destourian Party, confuses the issue clearly and deliberately about holding a defective election that does not elect the required number of parliamentarians. “Such an election is essentially illegitimate and must not proceed, because it does not comply with the stipulations of electoral law.”

The party had earlier filed a judicial appeal against the new electoral law issued by Saied. Party leader Abir Moussi described the text of the law as a “stigma issued by a non-competent party.”

READ: Tunisia opposition party, takes legal action to disrupt the referendum on constitution