When he was elected president of Tunisia in 2019, Kais Saeid represented a happy surprise for a large number of Tunisians, who pinned hope on him that he would cut ties with the political system that was built on top of the ruins of the regime of ousted president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.
From 2019 to 2021, Tunisians went through significant events and fast-paced developments that eventually culminated in electing a new parliament succeeding the legislature that prescient Saeid later suspended in July 2021 on the grounds that it was the primary cause of the country’s severe deterioration and descent into a crisis.
After Tunisians were eager to turn the page on the parliament controlled by Ennadha and its allies, President Saeid failed to rally a majority of citizens behind the project that he vowed to implement. His failure is attributed to a low turnout in the legislative elections held on December 17, 2022.
Causes of the Low Turnout
The turnout in the legislative election, which was as low as 11.2%, or 1025000 out of 9163000 registered voters, according to the country’s electoral commission, reflects the public mood and came as an expected result of the situation that prevailed in Tunisia since 2021. It is also a result of a deviation from the set course and some of its goals caused by many factors. The most important of these is a barrage of crises and issues that hit a country already plagued by economic and financial hardships after international lenders lost confidence in its ability to repay its loans. There is a decline in the country’s resources and income generated by exports of strategic commodities such as phosphates which were suspended entirely over the past years, as well a lower flow of tourists and the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. Most recently, the Russia-Ukraine war impacted what is left of the factors holding the country’s economy together.
Although they are serious, these factors alone do not explain the low turnout in the parliamentary elections or the president’s inability to use the elections as an opportunity to renew his relationship with citizens. In fact, President Saied, who won the bets and defeated Ennahda and its allies in the parliament and the political landscape, has, in the recent elections, failed the most challenging test when he turned his choice and political project into a socio-political project that inclusively engages all Tunisians of various affiliations.
When President Saied suspended the parliament in response to growing popular demands that almost led to clashes between the supporters and opponents of Ennahda before July 25, 2021, he failed to launch his political project because it was still incomplete as it is today, even after the elections.
When Saied was elected president in 2019, he made it to the presidential palace in Carthage after winning 1.5 votes. Yet, when he wanted to re-open the parliament, no more than one million voters answered his call to action, which means he lost more than half a million votes, although an additional million voters joined the electoral base from 2019 to 2022.
Perhaps the low turnout of voters supporting President Saied’s project was anticipated over the past months because he clung to his agenda announced in his letter of candidacy back in 2019. That is, Tunisians hoped the politician would put his words into action. When he announced his presidential bid, his unique rhetoric appealed to large segments of the youth, marginalized people, and all those against former regimes, as well as to those disappointed by politicians who ran the country after 2011.
Hoping for renewal and placing bets on change, Tunisians voted for Saied to repair what became to be known as the ten years of deterioration (2011-2021). But Saied, for reasons primarily attributed to the global economic crisis sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, faced challenges in his bid to resolve the economic grievances of citizens, especially those from the lower class, which grew more prominent as more middle-class people joined it. Over the past months, Tunisians faced soaring prices of essential commodities. As shown by their attitude and statements to the media or social media, they recognized that the state could not counter this economic crisis. This alone can explain why voter turnout in the elections plummeted. Tunisians, because of what can be described as a “common nation-wide frustration”, became convinced that it is useless to vote for candidates to a parliament with an unknown identity, power or even its ability to help solve their issues, especially after too many amendments to the country’s constitution and institutions.
Tunisians who boycotted December 17 2022, elections fall into either one of two groups: A great majority of citizens who are frustrated by politics and politicians, or those who are opponents to president Saied who did not take the opportunity to restore order and organization after July 2021, with the aim to absorb the shock caused by his suspension of the parliament and failed to take quick decisions and measures long awaited by politicians who were not affiliated with the former parliament. These include the dissolution of the parliament, the call to early elections and forming of a national government engaging national technocrats.
A Looming Crisis
Rather than putting Tunisia on the way to exit the crisis, the results of the recent legislative elections appear to be a prelude to a fresh crisis. Low turnout in the elections might offer a glimpse of the situation in the next presidential elections.
The most serious of all is that the Ennahda Movement and Islamism, on the one hand, and terrorist extremists who were raised within the movement, on the other, might use the growing frustration and despair of Tunisians to recover, catch their breath, reorganize their ranks and modify their looks in preparation for their comeback to Tunisia’s political scene. In 1988, when the Constitutional Democratic Rally was formed by ousted president Ben Ali on the ruins of the Socialist Destourian Party (1986–1988) Constitutional Democratic Rally in alliance with former leftists and conservative anti-Islamist conservative right-wing liberals, the slogan that prevailed then was “it is either this Rally or terrorism”. In the future, if Islamists seize power in alliance with the opponents of President Saied, the slogan that they will put up would be “it is either Ennahda or chaos.”
