Tunisian parties submit candidate lists for May polls

By Iman Ghali

TUNIS (AA) - Tunisia’s Ennahda and Nida Tounes parties have both submitted their respective lists of candidates for municipal council polls slated for May 6, according to the country’s official electoral commission.

Ennahda (which holds 68 of 217 seats in parliament) and Nida Tounes (56 seats) have so far submitted the most electoral lists, commission member Riadh Bouhouchi told reporters on Friday.

The upcoming municipal polls will be the first of their kind since Tunisia’s 2011 popular uprising, which ended the repressive regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after almost 25 years in power.

The election will see more than 57,000 candidates vie for 7,182 local council seats in 350 municipal districts countrywide.

Other parties to have submitted their electoral lists are the leftist Popular Front (15 seats in parliament) and the liberal Mashrou Tounes party (21 seats).

Without counting its expatriate community, some 5,369,000 Tunisians are registered to vote in the polls, according to the electoral commission.