The polling is a week ahead of the second round of the presidential contest that will determine the future of the only democracy to have emerged from the Arab Spring eight years ago.

Analysts are paying particular attention to the turnout in today’s poll.

Fewer than half of the seven million Tunisian voters cast their ballots in the first round of the Presidential election last month.

This indicated the disillusionment with current political reality as much as the choice of two outsiders to contest the run-off.

Many young Tunisians are staying away, believing the politicians don’t have an answer for the economic stagnation hamstringing their Mediterranean Arab country.

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Economic and security problems have dogged the Mediterranean country squeezed between Algeria and Libya .

The Niba Tounes coalition of the late President Beji Caid Essebsi, whose death in July forced the election earlier than planned, has effectively disintegrated.

So the only relatively safe bet in this field of 26 candidates is that no-one will  emerge as an outright winner.

This will necessitate a second round between the two frontrunners by early November.

That will be after parliamentary elections that will shape the future of country that historically punches above its weight  in the African, Arab and Mediterranean worlds. 

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