29 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Tunisians return to the polls this Sunday to vote in the second round of legislative elections for a Parliament completely stripped of its powers at the mercy of the current president, Kais Saied, after a first round marked by historic lows of participation.
Some 262 candidates, including just 34 women, are running for 131 seats in an election that saw only 11.2 percent of registered voters turn out in the first round last month, and amid calls for comprehensive political reform of the current system imposed by the mandatary.
In fact, the General Union of Workers of Tunisia, the most powerful in the country, announced this Friday the launch of the so-called National Salvation Initiative in an attempt to dialogue with the Government, a few hours before the second round of the legislative elections.
The union’s general secretary, Nuredin Tabubi, described the initiative as an attempt to solve decades of ongoing crises. “This country is drowning and we have no choice but to sit down and talk,” he said at a press conference collected by the Tunisien Numerique portal.
The initiative, necessary according to Tabubi, given the existing fragmentation among the Tunisian political opposition, is limited for the moment to civil organizations such as the National Association of Lawyers, the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights and the Tunisian Forum for the Defense of Economic and Social Rights, although the general secretary has not ruled out the participation of the parties.
Saied has promoted since July 2021 a series of measures to reform the political system of Tunisia, including a constitutional referendum, approved in the midst of the opposition boycott, which reinforces the powers of the Presidency. The opposition has denounced an authoritarian drift of the president and has demanded his resignation.
