On May 6th, 2018, Tunisia held its first local elections since 2011 to determine who would govern the country’s municipalities. Despite some lament over low turnout levels compared with the 2011 and 2014 general elections, the 2018 elections were still historic. They were not only the first municipal elections since the revolution, but also the first truly competitive, nationwide local elections in the country’s history. Beyond their importance as a milestone in Tunisia’s democratic consolidation, however, these elections were an unprecedented opportunity for local political mobilization, party institutionalization, and the potential induction of thousands of new people into the political elite.

More than 45,000 candidates ran for approximately 7,000 seats across 350 municipal councils. As a result of new electoral laws and quotas adopted in 2017, half of these candidates were women, and half were under the age of 35. As with politicians in any context, these candidates vary in terms of background, motivation, and capacity, as well as differences in ideology and policy preferences. Given the often personal nature of local politics, the characteristics of the candidates who ran—and who won—are likely to have broad consequences for local governance. Who these new leaders are has implications for local development priorities and investments, the capacity to implement new decentralization reforms, and the ongoing development of parties at the local and national levels.

To study this new cohort of Tunisian politicians, the researchers conducted a survey of nearly 2,000 candidates in 100 municipalities between April and May 2018. This Local Election Candidate Survey (LECS) included questions that measure a variety of candidate characteristics, including demographic and socioeconomic background, experience, history of political participation, policy preferences, campaign activities, political knowledge, and public goods orientation. The sample is representative of candidates from the two main parties—the Ennahda Movement and Nidaa Tounes—and also includes a substantial number of candidates from independent and other party lists.

The Tunisian LECS represents an innovative data collection effort for the study of local politics and democratization in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and this brief is the first in a series that will examine some initial high-level results. Here, we provide an overview of the sampling strategy and data collection methods, as well as summary statistics on several key metrics and survey questions. These measures will be used in subsequent briefs that explore the characteristics of candidates from three important groups—women, youth, and independents—that were previously largely excluded from elected office.