Tunisia opposition says to boycott December elections

TUNIS — Tunisia's main opposition alliance said on Wednesday its members including the once-powerful Ennahdha party would boycott December polls to replace a parliament dissolved by President Kais Saied.

The vote is set for nearly a year and a half after Saied suspended the Ennahdha-dominated assembly and sacked the government, later pushing through a constitution enshrining his one-man rule.

"The National Salvation Front has definitively decided to boycott the upcoming elections," said Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, head of the front which is made up of parties and movements opposed to Saied.

He said the move was in response to an electoral law written "by Saied alone", part of a "coup against constitutional legitimacy".

Saied's power grab was welcomed by many Tunisians tired of what they saw as a fractious and corrupt system established after the 2011 revolution.

But opposition forces say his moves, culminating in a new constitution confirmed by a widely boycotted July referendum, amount to a return to autocracy in the only democracy to have emerged from the Arab Spring.