TUNIS — Five Tunisian opposition parties announced on Monday they would boycott the December elections to replace the parliament dissolved by President Kais Saied.

The announcement came in a joint statement by the Workers’ Party, the Republican Party, the Democratic Current, the Modernist Pole, and the Al-Takatul for Labor and Freedoms.

The Secretary-General of Al-Takatul party said that the boycott would expand further to include other parties to oppose the current Tunisian political aspects.

Meanwhile, Secretary-General of the Republican Party Esam Al-Shabani warned that the new election law would eliminate the democratic transition experience in Tunisia.

He added that the new electoral law violates one of the most important gains for women, who will have neither a role nor a presence in the next parliament.

The Tunisian president issued few days ago new election law which voters will choose candidates on the upcoming election (Dec. 17) individually rather than by selecting a single party list.

Saied has made new changes to electoral law that diminish the role of political parties, three months ahead of legislative elections, in what opposition groups see as the latest step in a sweeping power grab.

A new electoral law published recently reduces the number of members of the Lower House of Parliament from 217 to 161, and said candidates will now be elected directly instead of via party lists. Voters will elect a new legislature on Dec. 17.

“In the past, the Parliament Deputy drew his legitimacy from his party. Today, he must assume his responsibilities, above all, before his constituents,” Saied said at a Cabinet meeting on Thursday.

According to the new rules, Parliament members “who do not fulfill their roles” can be removed if 10 percent of constituents who voted for them lodge a formal request with Parliament.

Saied froze Parliament in 2021 after years of political deadlock and economic crisis, and then dissolved it in March. A constitution approved in a July referendum hands broad executive powers to the president and weakens the influence of Tunisia’s Parliament and judiciary.

While opposition members and Western critics warned the moves threaten hard-won democratic gains, many Tunisians welcomed Saied’s actions after years of exasperation with the country’s political elites.

The president insisted at a Cabinet meeting on Thursday that he had no intention of excluding any party from the Parliamentary elections.

He argued that the new law was based on a study of systems in other countries, and “will allow the people to freely express their will and to vote for the person of their choice”. — Agencies