Tunisian President Saied Changes Voting Structure for Upcoming Elections

Tunisia’s president, who last week dissolved the county’s parliament, has changed the way his country’s citizens will vote in parliamentary elections that are expected to take place in December. President Kais Saied announced on Wednesday that the parliamentary vote will be held in two rounds and that voters will directly elect individuals to the parliament rather than vote for candidates lists as has been done in previous elections.

Saied said that the elections would be supervised by the Independent Electoral Commission, but said that it would be reconstituted, Al Jazeera reported. The main opposition party Ennahdha has threatened to boycott elections based on unilateral restructuring.

Saied in July of last year dismissed his government and seized a number of powers by granting himself executive authority in what critics have called a coup. In September 2021, he announced that he would rule by decree. A month later, he appointed a new prime minister, and then approved a new cabinet of political neophytes, coming from academia or who were civil servants, which he dissolved last week. Saied wants to amend the 2014 constitution, which he says he will then submit to a popular referendum in July, ahead of the December elections.

Tunisia became a democracy in 2011 as part of the Arab Spring revolutions. Its democratic president and parliamentary form of government has experienced some difficulties. Saied was elected president in 2019.