For the first time ever, Tunisians are going to the polls today (October 26) to select the members of their country’s legislature.
Some 13,000 candidates representing more than 90 political parties ran for the 217 available seats in the legislature.
Voting began at 7 am and was set to wrap up at 6 pm local time, with results to be tallied shortly thereafter.
Elections for Tunisia’s president are scheduled to take place on November 23.
The polls follow the democratic reforms that enforced the country’s first free election of a constitutional council in 2011. By 2014, Tunisia had completed a new constitution. It has since been governed by a group of independent leaders headed by Mehdi Joma’a.
More than five million residents are eligible to vote in the nation that brought the upheaval of Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution and the subsequent region-wide Arab Spring to the Middle East.
