Tunisia has welcomed election observers from Russia to monitor Saturday’s disputed election, which is being boycotted by opposition parties and European Union election monitoring bodies.
Tunisians started voting in a lacklustre election at 8am for a parliament with virtually no power, the final pillar of President Kais Saied’s power grab in the birthplace of the Arab Spring.
Tunisian President Kais Saied indicated earlier in the year he will not accept foreign observers for future votes, having already taken control of the previously independent electoral commission.
The Russian delegation of observers was, however, warmly received.
A team of observers from Russia will “monitor” Tunisia’s legislative elections.
Farouk Bouasker, the president of the official election commission, said on Friday that the presence of Russian observers was evidence of the “privileged relations between Tunisia and Russia”.
In April, President Kais Saied issued a decree which grants him the right to appoint the president and members of the new electoral commission, including Bouasker.
A coalition of 11 political groups called for a boycott of today’s elections, saying the vote is part of a “coup” against the only democracy to have emerged from the 2011 wave of uprisings across the region.