#Fails of the Tunisian Electoral Campaign in One Hilarious Blog · Global Voices
Afef Abrougui

Campaigning underway by the ‘Current of Love’, a political party in Tunisia
Tunisian netizens are crowdsourcing the funniest and most ridiculous moments of the election race on a Tumblr blog called #TnElecFails.
Campaigning for Tunisia's parliamentary elections kicked off on October 4. More than 5 million registered voters are set to elect 217 members of the Assembly of the People's Deputies on October 26.
Two of the strongest contenders in this year’s legislative elections are the Islamist Ennahda Movement, which emerged as the winner of the 2011 election; and Nidaa Tounes, founded in 2012 and led by 86-year-old Beji Caid Essebsi, who served under the previous autocratic regimes of Habib Bourguiba and Zine el-Abidin Ben Ali
But with a number of electoral lists exceeding 1,300 and a number of candidates estimated at 13,000, there are plenty of things to laugh about in this year's election race including the logos, names and mottos of electoral lists.
Here are some photos:
“I like” is the logo of this list
Name of the list: “the miserables”, motto: “a hope for generations”
This independent list ‘I want my country to be clean’ was hung on a wall near a high school, without the photos of its candidates, with the following note: “Our photos do not matter, what matters is achieving our promises to you”. The list did not remain without photos for long, and this note was added: “We do not need your faces anyway”.
But why the derision of the Tunisian elections?
Scissors is the logo of the Tunisian party because they want to “circumsize the security [institution], the judiciary and the administration”. Most probably, they meant to purge or cleanse from corruption. But, they opted for “circumcise”.
Well, it is not really a choice. Who would not laugh at “the miserables, a hope for generations” or at a party seeking to “circumcise the security and judicial institutions and the administration”?
“Une journée sans rire est une journée perdue” — devise de nos politiciens qui l'appliquent pour le bien du peuple.. #tnelec2014
— Fhtagn! (@Fhtagn) October 8, 2014
“A day without laughter, is a lost day”, this is the motto implemented by our politicians for the good of the people.
But at the same time, this mockery reflects the popular dissatisfaction with the political class in Tunisia, which nearly four years after the ousting of the Ben Ali regime, has done little to respond to the urgent socio-economic aspirations of Tunisians.
This was reflected by the protest of a group of unemployed graduates in Metlaoui, an impoverished town in the province of Gafsa in southwestern Tunisia. They hung their university diplmoas with “for sale” written on them, on a wall allocated for electoral lists.