Voting turnout for people with disabilities in February 4 runoff local elections reached 16%, said SG and spokesperson for the Tunisian Organisation for the Defence of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (French: OTDDPH) Bouarouia Agrebi, down from 20% in the first round.
Agrebi Sunday told a press conference one hour after the closure of polling stations people with disabilities are confronted with several difficulties that impede their participation in elections.
This includes issues in connection to infrastructure, access to information and the way this group of voters are treated by staff members in polling places.
Seventy percent of the 900 polling stations to which OTDDPH observers were deployed, Agrebi said, mainly lacked disability access symbols and wheelchair access corridors.
Coordinator Anouar El Heni said twenty-five people with disabilities were denied the right to priority when casting their ballots and a further 19 were prevented from voting for failing to present their disability pas
ses or for infrastructure- related grounds.
Four more people were subjected to discrimination and ill-treatment from polling station staff, Bouraouia added.
Agrebi urged elected officials with disabilities to work hard to discharge their mission. She also called on the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, ministers and the parliament to take on people with disabilities in administrative and advisory functions
Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse