Another weekend, another set of scarcely democratic local elections. After Belarus last weekend, this weekend it was the turn of Tunisia.

Municipal elections were held in Tunisia on Sunday. A total of 4,478 seats were in competition for 264 municipal councils. Jeune Afrique has a resume of the results:

Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique (RCD) – 90.67%, 4,060 seats
Consensus opposition (mainly allies of RCD) – 9.33%, 418 seats

These seats break down as follows:
Mouvement des Démocrates Socialistes (MDS) – 154 seats
Parti de l’Unité Populaire (PUP) – 119 seats
l’Union Démocratique Unioniste (UDU) – 66 seats
Parti Social Libéral – 35 seats
Parti des Verts pour le Progrès – 29 seats
Independents – 15 seats

So, the RCD will head all 264 councils. However, in contrast to Belarus, the opposition (of sorts) did at least win some seats. In part, this is because, according to Jeune Afrique, the party that comes first in the municipality can only obtain 75% of the seats on the council, the rest going to other parties. However, the vast majority of the ‘opposition’ votes have been won by parties that are, in effect, tolerated by or that are de facto allied to the ruling RCD party.

In fact, certain ‘real’ opposition parties boycotted the vote, including the Parti démocratique progressiste (PDP). So, these elections merely demonstrate again the RCD’s hold over the country.

The tension was scarcely palpable, the result was hardly a shock. I have been visiting some of the Tunisian media sites over the past few weeks trying to find something of interest to say about the election and I failed. All I could find was some of the most obsequious coverage of an election, or rather of a candidate, incumbent president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, that I have seen for a long time. This isn’t to pass judgement on the election or the president, it merely reflects some of the coverage that I saw and maybe there was other coverage (in Arabic, for example) that allowed itself to be critical.

Anyway, the result is in. President Ben Ali has been re-elected to serve for a fifth term. In the two previous elections he won more than 90% of the vote. This time he just failed to do so. The turnout was 89.40%.

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali – Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique (RCD), 89.62%
Mohamed Bouchiha – Parti de l’Union Populaire (PUP), 5.01%
Ahmed Inoubli – l’Union Démocratique Unioniste (UDU), 3.80%
Ahmed Brahim – Mouvement Attajdid,1.57%

In the legislative elections President Ben Ali’s RCD party also won a comfortable majority.

Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique (RCD) – 84.59%, 161 seats
Mouvement des Démocrates Socialistes (MDS) – 4.63%, 16 seats
Parti de l’Unité Populaire (PUP) – 3.39%, 12 seats
l’Union Démocratique Unioniste (UDU) – 2.56%, 9 seats
Parti Social Libéral – 8 seats
Parti des Verts pour le Progrès – 6 seats
Mouvement Attajdid – 2 seats

Source here