The financial cost of the next elections will amount to TND 40 million, President of the Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE), Farouk Bouasker, said on Friday, adding that the cost of future local elections will not exceed the usual amount of previous elections.

Speaking to TAP on the sidelines of a meeting to reward contributors to the electoral division project, Bouasker stressed that the lion's share of the electoral costs, two-thirds, will be allocated to the public bodies dealing with the electoral commission.

«It is clear that these expenses are public funds and therefore they have to be returned to the state bodies," he said.

On the other hand, the remaining amount of the election expenses will be reserved for the recruitment of polling station agents, whose number could increase to 60,000 on election day.

Regarding the economic costs of the upcoming local elections, the ISIE president estimated that they will not differ much from the usual costs of previous elections.

The largest amount of money will be reserved for these elections, which will be held in two rounds. They are direct elections, where all the polling stations have to be equipped and where more than 9 million voters will be called to vote, unlike the district and regional elections, which are indirect and therefore not costly, he added.

Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse