TUNIS, 24 October 2004 — Thousands of opponents of Tunisia’s president put on a rare show of unity ahead of general elections they say will make a mockery of the government’s democratic pledges.

President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, in power for 17 years and accused by critics of seeking a presidency-for-life, is widely expected to win a fourth five-year mandate today.

More than 4.6 million voters in the small North African country will also elect 189 members of Parliament, with the ruling Constitutional Democratic Rally expected to keep a tight grip on the legislative house.

The rally, late on Friday night and into the early hours of yesterday in the capital Tunis, was the largest held by the opposition in years, witnesses said, and the first time the small and fragmented opposition presented a unified front.

“The enemies of transition to a genuine democracy are trembling now. With us staying together, Tunisia will not be the same the day after the election, whatever the results,” Mohamed Harmel, head of the secular Attajdid party, told the crowd.

Attajdid is fielding Mohamed Ali Halouani, a 47-year-old university philosophy teacher, in the presidential race, one of three candidates from small opposition party running against Ben Ali, 68, last re-elected in 1999 with 99.5 percent of the vote.

Human rights groups say Tunisia has never had a free election since independence from France in 1956.

The leading opposition Democratic Progressive Party withdrew all its 89 candidates from the legislative election on Friday, saying the presidential and parliamentary poll would be a sham.

The government has dismissed opposition parties’ accusations that authorities prevented some of them from campaigning and restricted their access to voters through the state-run media. It says there was equal air time on radio and television for all candidates.

Some opposition groups say today’s multiparty elections are part of a well-orchestrated government drive to put a veneer of democracy on a de facto single-party rule.

Many opposition activists hoped the campaign will have rallied grass-root support and unify an opposition often fractioned along blurry ideological lines.

“A fighting spirit is returning to the opposition camp after years of reluctance to join the political battle against this government,” leftist figure Mustapha Ben Ahmed told the rally.