Month: December 2022

Tunisians are going to the polls on December 17 to vote in parliamentary elections that parties opposed to President Kais Saied are boycotting.

The country’s parliament last convened in July 2021, and in March of this year was controversially dissolved by President Saied, who has granted himself sweeping powers.

At the time, the president said the moves were necessary to save the country amid protracted political and economic crisis, and many Tunisians welcomed them, but critics feared the power grab jeopardizes Tunisia’s young democracy.

Saturday’s polls will open at 0700GMT in most parts of Tunisia, with votes being cast until 1700GMT.

In Soukra, a neighbourhood of Ariana, part of the Greater Tunis area, a candidate is canvassing door-to-door.

Under new rules, foreign media are forbidden to talk to candidates so as not to give any individual an undue advantage.

Local resident Abdellatif Rwahi tells the candidate he’s not happy with the state of the roads in the area.

The parliamentary election sees significant changes to previous polls, with the number of seats in parliament reduced from 217 to 161.

Previously, lawmakers were selected through party lists, but in Saturday’s poll candidates will stand for single constituencies where they must win a simple majority or face a run-off vote in a month’s time.

Some voters say that directly choosing their lawmaker will lead to greater accountability.

Tunisia’s economic crisis has paralleled its political one, and the rising cost of living is on everyone’s lips. Coffee shops seem to be one of the locations favoured by candidates to meet and convince voters.

“The last ten years have been disastrous for all Tunisians,” said 41-year-old chef Aymen Yaakoubi. “It was not a revolution, but a quagmire, because the state disintegrated. We hope to get out of this quagmire after these elections.”

But with many opposition parties boycotting the polls, including the Salvation Front coalition that the popular Ennahda party is part of, it’s not clear that the elections will lead to the political and economic stability that the president is looking to create.

Sghaier Zakraoui, like the president himself, is a prominent law professor. He was one of the first to come out in support of President Saied’s moves to concentrate power in his own hands. But over the past year he has changed his mind, calling Saturday’s polls a ‘non-event’.

“The President of the Republic has imposed a process that I call a personal adventure because he imposed his constitution, his choices, his electoral law, which will lead to a failure of the President,” Zakraoui said.

Tunisia’s opposition accuses Saied of having designed the electoral law to promote the emergence of a subservient parliament. The president’s supporters deem the measures taken since 25 July 2021 necessary to get the country out of the economic and social crisis during the decade since the ouster of the former dictatorial regime of president Ben Ali.

The bodies of 27 migrants believed to have died of thirst have been found in the Chadian desert, the U.N. migration agency said on Tuesday.

According to reports, the migrants reportedly left Moussoro, a crossroads town in West-Central Chad, 17 months ago in a pickup truck, the IOM said in a statement.

It is believed the truck got lost in the deep desert, broke down due to mechanical issues, and the migrants died of thirst, said the migration organization affiliated with the UN.

“We are deeply saddened by this most recent tragedy and extend our heartfelt condolences to the migrants’ families,” said Anne Kathrin Schaefer, IOM Chad Chief of Mission.

Chad, at the crossroads of North and Central Africa, currently hosts about 300,000 refugees in 17 refugee camps and 160,000 internally displaced persons in the eastern and southern parts of the country.

The forced migration has been caused mainly by conflict and general insecurity in western Sudan, eastern Chad, and parts of the Central African Republic.

According to the IOM, food insecurity, failed harvests, and inconsistent rains have impacted migration patterns.

Since 2014, 110 migrant deaths have been recorded within Chad, including this latest incident.

These numbers are likely higher, as many migrant deaths go unrecorded, leaving families worried and without answers about their loved ones, said the IOM.

In June, the bodies of 20 Chadians and Libyans were found in the Libyan desert in Koufra, a town located along the Chad-Libya border.

The French government has announced that it will mobilize 10,000 police officers and gendarmes, including 5,000 in Paris and its region, to oversee the celebrations surrounding the France-Morocco World Cup semi-final on Wednesday evening.

“10,000 police and gendarmes will be mobilized. 5,000 in the Paris region, especially around the Champs-Elysées and 5,000 outside the Paris region,” said the Minister of the Interior before the National Assembly, noting that the Champs-Elysées would not be closed to traffic.