Jonathan Mitchell: Tunisia’s poorest unmoved by polls

For his extensive labours, he earns eight to ten Tunisian dinars a day (around £4).

He is not dissimilar to Mohammed, the fruit and vegetable seller whose suicide sparked the Jasmine Revolution here in January 2011 and what has become known as the Arab Spring.

“He [Mohammed] was a hero,” Hedi says, while skilfully peeling a date with a small knife for a customer. “But I am not hopeful about the elections.”

He says there is very little to encourage him to vote and he has no time and no interest in voting. He thinks there is not a lot any politician can do to improve his situation, which is mostly one of backbreaking work and dire poverty.

This indifference to the upcoming elections – the first free polls in three decades and due to be held on 23 October – is common among many Tunisians.

Indeed, walking around Tunis, it is sometimes difficult to believe that the first election since the momentous events here in January – which ousted the long-time dictator Zine al-Aberdine Ben Ali – is under way. Across the city, there are more posters for pop concerts and mobile phone services than political posters.

“You could say it’s a last-minute culture,” says one diplomat here, who expects a turnout of more than 60 per cent, despite the apparent apathy.

As might be expected in a country of new-found democratic freedoms such as Tunisia, there are a large number of parties contesting the upcoming election – more than 100.

Among them is the residue of the Ben Ali dictatorship in the form of four breakaway parties from his now dissolved Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) party; the Popular Democratic Party (PDP), which was one of three “legal” parties under the dictatorship; Tashded and the FDDL, another two parties on the Left; Affec Tunis, a centre-right party; and even the Baath Party.

No wonder then that fruit seller Hedi, pushing his barrow through the streets, considers abstention from voting as a simpler option.

The two most interesting parties are the POC, which is a Marxist Communist party with a lot of student support and a well-organised base, and Ennahda, the mainstream Islamicist party.

Ennahda has emerged with the largest share of the upcoming vote – thought to be around 20 per cent. Ennahda claims to look to Islam for guidance, though accepts that Tunisia is a secular country.

Diplomats here say they are unconcerned about Ennahda, as long as they “abide by the democratic rules”, as one put it. Tunisians are not so sure, and some suspect a creeping Islamicisation of Tunisian society, which is one of the most liberal in the Arab world, with a great degree of personal freedom and enshrined rights for women.

The October polls are actually not for a new president to replace the interim prime minister, but for a constituent assembly which will draw up a new constitution. This may take up to a year, and most of the parties are in accord over most of the details of the new constitution. After that, presidential elections will be held.

While he does not intend to vote, fruit seller Hedi (and many like him) will be hoping that, whoever wins the October polls, life will improve for the country’s legions of poor and dispossessed.

Hedi has already benefited from the Jasmine Revolution in terms of his human rights. “In 2010, I was arrested by the police for selling fruit without a licence and held for six days. I was often asked to pay bribes,” says Hedi.

“Now this [solicitation of bribes] is rare, and usually the police just ask me to move along instead of arresting me.”