Independent candidates running in Tunisia’s first free municipal election gained more votes than major parties Ennahda and Nidaa Tounes, officials said on Tuesday citing preliminary results.
Independent electoral lists won over majority of the votes, a surprise which could see the removal of long-standing Ennahda and Nida ruling parties from the top.
Tunisia's Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) Chairman Mohammed al-Mansri confirmed on Tuesday that voter turnout rose to 35 percent as southwestern areas headed for the ballots after a delay.
Polls opened on Sunday in the first free municipal elections since the 2011 revolution.
Participation rate in municipal elections rose to 35 percent after voting in the southwest resumed after being postponed due to technical errors with registered rosters.
Mansri said that the IHEC will announce official preliminary results on Wednesday, settling a race which saw the participation of 2,074 electoral lists.
Independents won 32.2 percent of the vote, the Ennahda party 28.6 and Nidaa Tounes 20.8, election commission official Riad Bouhouchi told Reuters.
The European Union's municipal elections monitoring mission confirmed Tuesday that Sunday's elections were credible and transparent, despite some of the shortcomings of election campaigns and logistical obstacles at a number of polling stations.
"The May 6 municipal elections were credible in spite of the low turnout on the part of youth, in particular, and some technical weaknesses," said Fabio Massimo Castaldo, Chief Observer of the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) to Tunisia and Vice-President of the European Parliament.
At a press conference in Tunis, Castaldo reported that during the ballot day, the 124 observers from the EU EOM had visited 537 polling stations in 221 municipalities across the country to observe the vote and counting.
“The ballot was generally calm, in spite of some delays and incidents caused by logistical failures,” he added, specifying that in almost every polling station observed, the procedures had been properly applied and the counting had been conducted in a transparent and most often consensual way.
