Tunisia: The influential UGTT union has argued that a second round of elections will be chaotic and should be delayed because the resulting parliament will lack legitimacy as last week's parliamentary elections saw a record-low turnout.

The opposition strongly criticized the election results last week, calling for President Kais Saied to resign and threatening mass protests as only 11.2% of the country's eligible voters turned out.

With over one million members, the UGTT union has historically caused economic collapse with its strikes.

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It supported Said when he shut down the elected parliament the previous year in a bid to increase his power, but has since withdrawn that support when he shifted to dictatorship by decree and drafted a new constitution which was promulgated in July. was approved by a referendum.

UGTT head Noureddine Taboubi said, "I was hoping that after the low turnout, the president would say he got the message and admit that the path was wrong... but he is moving forward with his plan.

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He advised delaying the second round to prevent chaos.

Syed disagrees with the opposition's criticism, arguing that the results should be announced after the second round of voting, which is expected to take place in February but has not yet been determined.

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The electoral commission announced this week that runoff elections would be held in most regions of Tunisia after only 21 candidates won the first round of parliamentary elections.

The new parliament will have incredibly limited powers under the new constitution that Saied wrote and which was approved by a July referendum.

Syed's decision last year to dissolve the previous parliament was dubbed a coup by his critics, leading to a series of political changes, including elections.