U.S. urges Tunisia to expand political participation

TUNIS (Reuters) - The low voter turnout in Tunisia's parliamentary elections reinforces the need for the North African nation to further expand political participation in the coming months, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said on Sunday.

Only 8.8% of Tunisian voters cast ballots in Saturday's parliamentary elections, the country's electoral commission announced, after most political parties boycotted the vote as a charade to shore up President Kais Saied's power.

After announcing the turnout, major parties including the Salvation Front, which includes the Islamist Ennahda party and its arch-rival, the Free Constitutional Party, said Saied had no legitimacy and should step down, calling for massive protests.

"The parliamentary elections ... represent an essential initial step toward restoring the country's democratic trajectory," U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement.

"However, the low voter turnout reinforces the need to further expand political participation over the coming months," he added.

The elections, which took place 12 years after Tunisian vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in an act of protest that sparked the Arab Spring protests, followed Saied's dissolution last year of the legislature, a move that his opponents branded as a coup.

Saied, a former law lecturer who was politically independent when elected president in 2019, has described the elections as part of a roadmap for ending the chaos and corruption that he said afflicted Tunisia under the previous system.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara; Editing by Paul Simao)