Tunis, May 10: The party of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has won 90.67 percent of the seats in local government elections across the country, Interior Minister Rafik Bel Haj Kacem announced Monday.
The sweeping results of Sunday’s elections give the ruling Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) continued control of Tunisia’s 264 municipal councils for the next five years, while the opposition won seats in 83 districts.
Five opposition parties in “the consensus” — allied to the RCD — and eight “independent” opposition lists of candidates between them took a total of 9.33 percent of the seats, giving them 418 of the 4,478 seats in the local elections, according to official figures.
The turnout was 83.47 percent of an electorate of more than 3.1 million, the north African country’s interior minister told a press conference.
During the last local government elections in Tunisia, the RCD won 93.86 percent of the seats, while the “consensus” opposition and the “independents” took 6.1 percent, or 268 seats in 60 council districts.
The municipal elections took place seven months after the presidential and parliamentary polls in October, and were supervised by the National Elections Observatory.
–Agencies