Tunisia elections: Fairness and Impartiality !!?
As predicted, president Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali won the Tunisian elections for a fifth term. What wasn't expected was that he would win with 89.62 per cent of the over all votes. The prediction was that he would garner more votes.
Ben Ali's ruling party, the Democratic Constitutional Rally, also fared as well. It won 161 of the 214 parliament seats. The remaining 53 seats were won by six different parties: Movement for Democratic Socialists, 16 seats; Party of People's Unity, led by Mohamed Bouchiha, 12 seats; Ahmed Inoubli's Union of Democratic Unionists, 9 seats; Social Liberal Party, 8 seats; Party of Greens for Progress, 6 seats and Ahmed Brahim’s Ettajdid Party, 2 seats.
The ruling party announced the fairness and the impartiality of the 2009 elections. But opposition leaders and bloggers have another opinion: they think that repressive acts and stifling controls on the election process have characterized the 2009 presidential and legislative elections in Tunisia on October 25, 2009.
Arabasta ironically remarks :
نتوجه بالشكر أولا إلى الشعب التونسي اللي قام بواجبو الإنتخابي في كنف الديموقراطية و الشفافية و الروح الرياضية البارح و إنتخب رئيس جديد للبلاد و مجلس نواب أخر لمدة خمسة سنين. الإختيار هذا كان محكم و مدروس و حتى واحد ما حاول يأثر على العباد و حتى من التلفزة و الصحافة كانو في المستوى و عطاو وقت متساوي لكل المترشحين و الأنصار متاعهم بقطع النظر عن
قربهم أو بعدهم عن السلطة
نتوجه بالشكر زادة لسيادة رئيس الجمهورية (لمدة 5 سنوات أخرى) و نعتذر عن عدم الدعوة و التصويت ليه و نستنكر و نشجب
التصرفات المشينة هذي أما نذكر أنو عمري ما شككت في نزاهة الإنتخابات و حريتها، فمن المعروف أنو في حالة تزوير الإنتخابات النتائج تكون من نوع 99،98% لكن الملاحظ النزيه يعرف أنو نتيجة 2009 ما تبعدش برشة على النسبة اللي ربح بيها شيراك في 2002 في فرنسا و لذا فالإنتخابات هذي إرتقت بينا إلى مصاف الدول العظمى و المتقدمة
My thanks go first to Tunisian citizens who accomplished their electoral duties within the framework of democracy and transparency yesterday. They elected a new president for the country and a new parliament for another five years. This choice was wise and well thought of. No one has tried to influence the people and even the television channels and written media were neutral and guaranteed equal space for all the candidates and their supporters regardless of their relationship with the government.
My thanks go also to the president (for five more years) and I apologize for not supporting and not voting for him. I condemn this shameful behavior even though I recall the fact t that I have never questioned the neutrality and impartiality of the elections. As it is known that in case of fraud in the elections the results would be 98.99%. But an impartial observer knows that the 2009 results are not so different from those of 2002 in France when Chirac won the elections. This is why we can say that the elections elevated us to the rank of the developed and great nations.
Nakhlet Wed El Bey (The palm tree of the Bey's river) wrote in Tunisian dialect :
…
آش كان عليه لو كان حلّينا اللعب شويّة
و نزعنا الأكمام من أفوه المعارضة الحقيقية
لإنتصر الرئيس بسبعة و سبعين في المية
و انتزعنا من قلوب الرعايا النفاق و السكيزوفرينية
But what if we were more flexible
And took the muzzles off the real opposition mouth
Thus the president would win with 77.7%
And we would remove the hypocrisy and schizophrenia from the citizens hearts
Some Thoughts from Tunisia, on his part, described what happened to him when he went to vote in the last hours of the day :
“هذا العمدة انتخب في بلاصتوا…!!!!”
Then they said to him: “Nothing has happened You can choose your candidates but you do not have to sign. (The whole paper was signed and there is no room for another signature).
All this happened while I was standing there. My companion went to vote and I heard them whispering:
The “Omda” (a community chief) voted instead of him.
1 comment
What a masquerade is this political show of backwardness which men calls \democratic presidential and parliamentary elections\ in Tunisia! Whatever happened to the initial promises made by the \general\ turned president in 1987? He promised to reform the political stale-mate created by his predecessor the \President for life\ and thus would stay a mere two terms of five years in power? That’s what he said at the time but now TWENTY YEARS later and Mr President is still holding with all
his might at the reins of power, aided by his super ambitious spouse who is eager to take over from her ailing husband: a shrewd magpie awaits the passing away of an old crow! God help the ordinary men and women of Tunisia, who seem to be drugged by the state-propaganda in all walks of life and all mass media: they are socially and politically numb and cannot say what they want to say, except that they are all for the incumbent President and his political elite! What a waste! Fifty three years of independence from French colonialism have not paved the way to real understanding of the wishes of ordinary Tunisians: freedom to live in harmony with each other and to be able to openly say what they think of each other in all situations without being molested by the cops and their associates, freedom to write what they want and publish it in books and magazines, radio-and-tv-programmes without being arrested and their offices burnt out. What a democratic regime is this regime of Mr Ben Ali and what a splendid show democracy has he orchestrated on the stage of Carthage with the help of his Euro-American friends, the protectors of World democracy par excellence!
It’s a joke of course to speak of democratic elections in a country comparable to that of Ceausescu of Romania. He passed away in a tumult and his first lady was lynched. Tunisia is in mourning and its citizens are laughing and clapping hands to conceal their anger and frustration because nobody can help them get rid of the yoke of repression which has been institutionalised day by day for over fifty years now. God help us all in this democratic age of covert and overt oppression!