Tunisia's main opposition party has pulled its 89 candidates from upcoming parliamentary elections saying yesterday the government had blocked them from getting their message to voters. "Our candidates were withdrawing from the poll race to protest the several obstacles the government had erected to prevent them from reaching voters, including the seizure of the election manifesto," the official, who did not want to named, told Reuters. "That decision will be made public tomorrow at a news conference by the party leadership," he added.
| I guess boycotting the elections is the thing to do in the Arab and Muslim world... |
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) already announced it was boycotting the presidential race, saying it feared Sunday's election will open the door for reviving a presidency-for-life. Tunisian voters on Sunday go to the polls to elect members of Parliament and the president. Few doubt the outcome of the election — with President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali extending his power by a new five-year mandate and his ruling Constitutional Democratic Rally party keeping its grip on the 189-member Parliament. Critics accuse the government of brooking no true challengers and some opposition leaders say these multiparty elections are part of a veneer of democracy to disguise a de facto single-party rule.
Diplomats say Washington is closely watching the polls for signs the government is opening up Tunisia's political process after President George W. Bush urged Ben Ali for more reforms when they met early this year. Police blocked supporters of a Tunisian opposition presidential candidate from marching on the Interior Ministry building yesterday over the government's seizure of his election manifesto, witnesses and officials said. "Release the manifesto! Free the truth!," chanted backers of presidential candidate Mohamed Ali Halouani in a rare protest rally in Tunis. But plainclothes police outnumbered the dozens of demonstrators and blocked their way, witnesses said. The government is accused by some opposition parties and human rights groups at home and abroad of rights abuses. Witnesses said police did not beat or mistreat protesters yesterday as dissidents say they have done during past marches. The protests eventually dispersed peacefully. Halouani, a 47-year-old philosophy teacher, is competing against two other opposition candidates and incumbent Ben Ali, who took over in 1987 after replacing the then president-for-life Habib Bourguiba, the founder of modern Tunisia, after he was declared senile. |