<\/p>\n
Sudan Events \u2013 Sumaya Sayed<\/strong><\/p>\n Tunisians trickled into polling stations on Sunday in the first local elections for a second chamber of parliament under a constitution pushed through last year by President Kais Saied.<\/p>\n Opponents of Saied argue the election is the latest step in the president\u2019s \u201cauthoritarian\u201d agenda.<\/p>\n His new constitution, which was approved at a referendum, established two chambers of parliament — the Assembly of People\u2019s Representatives (ARP) and a National Council of Regions and Districts.<\/p>\n Tunisian media said Sundays\u2019 election was also expected to see a low turnout.<\/p>\n The inauguration of the National Council of Regions and Districts — the second chamber that voters are being asked to elect on Sunday — is scheduled for June 2024.<\/p>\n On Sunday, Tunisia\u2019s nine million electorate is being asked to choose more than 2,000 councillors from around 7,000 candidates, according to the Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE).<\/p>\n The elections will result in the establishment of local, regional, and district councils, allowing for the creation of the second chamber.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Opponents of Saied have called for a boycott of Sunday\u2019s election, calling them \u201cillegal\u201d and \u201cimposed.\u201d<\/p>\n Since February, authorities have jailed more than 20 members of the opposition, including Ennahdha leader Rached Ghannouchi and Jawhar Ben Mbarek, the co-founder of the National Salvation Front, among others.<\/p>\n More than 260 prominent figures in Tunisia signed a petition against what they called the \u201cuseless\u201d election, saying they believed Saied\u2019s government \u201ccontinues to implement its political project imposed on\u201d people in the country.<\/p>\n In the petition, they said the aim of Sunday\u2019s election was to \u201cweaken local power, disperse it, and make it another docile instrument in the hands of the executive power.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sudan Events \u2013 Sumaya Sayed Tunisians trickled into polling stations on Sunday in the first local elections for a second chamber of parliament under a constitution pushed through last year by President Kais Saied. Opponents of Saied argue the election is the latest step in the president\u2019s \u201cauthoritarian\u201d agenda. His new constitution, which was …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-news-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9055,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9053\/revisions\/9055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}