Tunisia launches voter registration drive

A major information campaign is under way on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and traditional media outlets to urge Tunisians to register to vote.

By Monia Ghanmi for Magharebia in Tunis – 27/07/11

Concerned with a low rate of voter registration, Tunisia's Independent High Electoral Commission (ISIE) is in the midst of a major push to encourage citizens to register for the country's historic October 23rd elections.

Tunisians have until Tuesday (August 2nd) to register to vote for the Constituent Assembly elections. The body chosen in October will be responsible for drafting the country's new democratic constitution.

According to ISIE, only 350,000 Tunisians were registered for the poll as of July 20th, compared with nearly 8 million eligible voters. Anyone over the age of 18 can participate in the upcoming election.

ISIE President Kamel Jendoubi said the numbers were unexpected, but he added that turnout was rising day after day. The commission has opened more than 400 offices nationwide for citizens to register, in addition to six offices for Tunisians living abroad.

The reason for the low participation, according to ISIE Secretary-General Boubaker Ben Thabeut, is the absence of a sense of responsibility that is vital to the democratic process.

But the registration drive has not been without problems. Several potential voters told Magharebia that they encountered problems when trying to register.

Jameleddine Chemkhi said that each time he went to Ben Arous municipality to catalog his name for the next election, he found that the computer was down or had poor internet connectivity. He said he was surprised by the problems, saying that ISIE had enough time to prepare. Chemkhi suggested that the difficulties contributed to low turnout.

Others took issue with the 20-day registration period. Zakia Attia said the timeframe was not enough to register everyone.

"It's important to allow as much time as possible for the success of the most important phase in this electoral process," she said. "In addition, this is the summer holiday period, and I think that the officials acted deliberately so as to extend the registration period and thus postpone the election."

As to the possibility of extending the voter registration period beyond August 2nd if the low turnout continued, Ben Thabeut said it was premature to say, noting that ISIE would determine that based on the reports filed to it by the committees that follow up on the registration on a daily basis in different areas across the country.

A number of Tunisians continue to abstain from involvement in politics at a time of continued ambiguity about the future of the country.

"I haven't so far registered because I'm afraid of the election and its results," said Fares Ghazouani. "So far, I haven't found a party that embodies my ideas and meets my aspirations."

Meanwhile, ISIE plans mobile registration offices to traverse the country and allow residents of rural areas to register. Saoud Kalai, the commission's vice president, said that authorities also plan to increase the number of registration offices to further facilitate the democratic process.

Source: Magharebia.
Link: http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2011/07/27/feature-01.