Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election

Tunis: Tunisians voted Sunday in a presidential election largely expected to see incumbent Kais Saied secure another five years in office while his ma...

Tunis: Tunisians voted Sunday in a presidential election largely expected to see incumbent Kais Saied secure another five years in office while his main critics -- including one contender -- are behind bars.

Three years after Saied staged a sweeping power grab, the election is seen as a closing chapter in Tunisia's short-lived experiment with democracy.

After ousting longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, Tunisia prided itself for more than a decade on being the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings against dictatorship.

The ISIE electoral board has said about 9.7 million people were expected to turn out. About 47 percent of them are aged between 36 and 60.

At one polling station in central Tunis, a group of mostly older men were seen queueing up to vote.