Tunisian election - can someone explain this?

[punisa]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisian_presidential_election,_2009

According to this information Ben Ali was re-elected in 2009 by a percentage of 89.62%
Voter turnout was recorded at 89.40% with 4,447,388 of Tunisia's 5.3 million registered voters participating.

And now as we know, he recently had to flee the country because the people are protesting against him.

I'm really puzzled by this data :confused:
Can someone explain this?

[Wanted Man]

Ben-Ali consistently had results like that. This was actually one of the lowest. Before that, he had 100% and 94% I believe.

Of course one would have to be pretty naive to think that these are serious elections. In the last one, I believe that several opposition parties boycotted the vote.

[Demogorgon]

The election was not exactly free and fair.

[Tommy4ever]

The election was not exactly free and fair.

I don't believe you.

[punisa]

Ben-Ali consistently had results like that. This was actually one of the lowest. Before that, he had 100% and 94% I believe.

Of course one would have to be pretty naive to think that these are serious elections. In the last one, I believe that several opposition parties boycotted the vote.

Yes, I noticed that as well. But it is self explanatory for the elections where he was the only candidate (hence 100% vote).
But I'm trying to figure out why was there a 89.40% (that is very high) turnout to vote for the man?
I stumbled at this data while doing a bit of research on Ali, appparently he was the inside man of the Italian secret services.

I understand that voting was not free nor fair, but usually when you have such phenomena (popular in Eastern Europe) you usually have one candidate win by a small margin - leading to belief that the small percentage of votes was stolen.
This situation in Tunisia is somewhat more complex it seems.

Maybe the answer lies in a small number of registered voters? 4,5 million. And Tunisia has cca 10 million people.
Literacy rate of 77% could also be a factor here.

[Crimson Commissar]

I don't believe you.
No election in a capitalist country is fair. Just look at here in Britain, no party other than the Conservatives or Labour has had any chance whatsoever of winning an election.

[human strike]

The opposition boycotted the election, not that a fair election was possible in a dictatorship like Tunisia anyway.

[DDR]

There are two words in spanish, sorry but I dunno them in english, that may help you to understand this: pucherazo and caciquismo.

[28350]

There are two words in spanish, sorry but I dunno them in english, that may help you to understand this: pucherazo and caciquismo.

Pucherazo is rigging the election.
Caciquismo is often translated as "bossism." It's basically the rule of local bosses or chiefs.