Tunisia: elections authority calls for candidates to avoid hate speech

The head of Tunisia’s Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE) called on Monday for the candidates in the second round of the early legislative election scheduled for 29 January to avoid “hate speech” and focus on electoral programmes. Farouk Bouaskar made his appeal at the launch of the election campaign on Monday.

The ISIE held a media meeting in Tunis with the candidates of the northern governorates. The campaign will continue until Friday, 27 January. No campaigning is allowed on the day before the election, at which 131 parliamentary seats are being contested. Some opposition parties will not be represented in the next parliament because they are boycotting the early legislative election.

“It is important to respect fair competition between the candidates so that the electoral campaign in the second round is implemented in the best conditions,” stressed Bouaskar.

He explained that the ISIE has assigned 632 affiliated observers, including 524 field employees and 108 administrators to “virtually and physically monitor” the campaign.

The preliminary results of the second round will be announced on 30 and 31 January. “Any appeals can then be made to the Administrative Court, with the final results being announced no later than 4 March,” said the ISIE head.

READ: Election candidates launch propaganda campaign

The first round of the election was held on 17 December, when 23 MPs were elected, including three women. There are 154 seats in parliament altogether.

There was a record low turnout of 11.22 per cent of eligible voters. Political parties have described this as a failure by the country’s President Kais Saied and the exceptional measures that he imposed in July 2021. Calls were made for an early presidential election.

The election is the latest stage of Saied’s exceptional measures. It was preceded by the dissolution of the Supreme Judicial Council and parliament; the issue of legislation by presidential decrees; and approval of a new constitution in a referendum on 25 July last year.

Saied’s political opponents view the measures as a “consolidation of absolute individual rule” and a “coup against the constitution”. His supporters see them as a “correction of the course of the 2011 revolution” which toppled the regime of former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (1987-2011). According to Saied himself, his measures are “necessary and legal” to save the state from “total collapse.”