The Government of Tunisia establishes the second round of the legislative elections in February after high abstention

MADRID, 20 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Government of Tunisia plans to hold the second round of the legislative elections for the majority of the seats during the first week of February after only 11 percent of the people called to vote went to the polls in the elections, held this Saturday .

This has been detailed by Executive sources to the Bloomberg agency, all this after the Tunisian National Electoral Commission has reported the base rate of participation among the 9.1 million Tunisians with the right to vote.

The vote has also left the fate of 131 seats in the 161-member Congress undecided. Now, months may pass before the new assembly is installed, as detailed by the commission's spokesman, Mohamed Tlili Mansri.

Meanwhile, the president of the Maghreb country, Kais Saied, has addressed the opposition's reactions to the high abstention, stating that "they have not found anything to focus on except the percentage of participation in this first round."

"Some parties did not find anything to focus on except the percentage of participation (...) while the percentage of participation is not measured only in the first round but in the two rounds," he asserted in a statement from the Presidency of Tunisia.

Saied has insisted on this last idea by comparing it to a football match: "This attitude (...) is similar to announcing the result of a match in a sports newspaper at the end of its first half."

Different Tunisian opposition parties have highlighted as a political victory the very low turnout in the legislative elections held this Saturday in Tunis after their call for abstention in protest at the concentration of power in the hands of President Saied.

"The participation in the elections has confirmed that the people are disappointed with Kais Saied," said a spokesman for the National Front, Ahmed Nayib, calling the abstention an "earthquake of eight degrees on the Richter scale," the Tunisian broadcaster reported. Mosaic FM.

For this reason, last Saturday he called on the Tunisian people, civil society organizations and associations and the country's personalities to mobilize, close ranks and participate in protests and rallies to "overthrow" the "regime of July 25, 2021". in reference to the date on which Saied ordered the dissolution of the Government and the suspension of Parliament.