“This is a golden opportunity. We have to vote, and we have to vote well. I'm confident I’ve made the best choice I could,” she says, while taking selfies with her friend showing the ink-stained finger – proof of voting.
Sanaa, 38, agrees: “There are those who decided not to vote this time. Maybe they voted for someone who wasn't that competent last time and were disappointed, so they don’t want to be disappointed again. But I believe we must vote. It’s not a choice but a duty.”
First-time voters
The youth were late in getting to the voting booths, and while they did turn up, it was not in the numbers officials were hoping for.
For 19-year-old Nefal, it was his first time. He believes it is “something all Tunisians need to do”.
However, he admits that his friends didn't see things the same way.
“Some of them decided it’s not necessary to vote. But, it’s my country and I’m a patriot. I need to."
Over in the more bourgeois part of Sousse in Karaoui, Sara and her friend Nefal are also voting for the first time.
“We all voted, all our family and friends. We’re not political people but you have to vote, it’s a duty,” says Sara.
At Cité Suisse, another working-class neighbourhood of Sousse, Mourad Zaygher can’t stop smiling after casting his vote.
In his late 30s, it’s also his first time voting – he didn't bother in 2014. But this was the right time, he says, “because there are new people with a beautiful vision of things for Tunisia”.
Political versus apathy
In the lead-up to these polls, there was much reporting on voter apathy.
But voter participation was still palpable, even if not everyone is convinced that their vote can make a difference.
With many people coming out to vote merely from a sense of ‘duty’, perhaps one could conclude along the lines of Ahmed, the philosopher whom we met earlier, that the situation for Tunisia’s democracy is closer to the cup being half full, rather than half empty.
Anne-Marie Bissada
