TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — An anti-terrorism judge in Tunis has ordered the imprisonment of former Prime Minister Ali Larayedh, vice-president of the popular Islamist opposition party Ennahdha, days after legislative elections marked by a very low turnout.

Ines Harrath, a lawyer with knowledge of the case, said the judge's decision, announced on Monday, is linked to a case in which other Ennahdha officials are suspected involving Tunisians who went to fight alongside extremists in Syria

Ennahdha, which held the largest number of lawmakers in the previous parliament, denounced the move as a political attack, saying its vice-president has been “deliberately targeted” in a “vain and flagrant attempt” by authorities and President Kais Saied to cover the “failure” of Saturday's legislative elections. The party called for Larayedh to get freed.

Only 11.22% of Tunisian voters cast ballots in Saturday’s legislative elections, according to Farouk Bouaskar, president of Tunisia’s Election Authority, who released the preliminary official results on Monday. That is about 1 million voters out of over 9 million inscribed on the electoral list.

Opposition parties — including the Salvation Front coalition that the Ennahdha party is part of — boycotted the polls because they say the vote is part of Saied’s efforts to consolidate power. The decision to boycott will likely lead to the next legislature being subservient to the president, whom critics accuse of authoritarian drift.

In his first public comments over the elections, Saied rejected criticism over the low turnout and accused opponents of trying to cast doubts over the representativeness of the new parliament. He said the turnout “is not measured through the first round, but through both rounds,” according to a statement Monday from the presidency.

Bouaskar said 21 candidates were elected in the first round, while 133 candidates are qualified for the second round scheduled for Jan. 19. Definitive results will be announced on March 3, he said.

Parliament last met in July 2021. Since then, Saied, who was elected in 2019 and still enjoys the backing of more than half of the electorate, has also curbed the independence of the judiciary and weakened parliament’s powers.

In a referendum in July, Tunisians approved a constitution that hands broad executive powers to the president. Saied, who spearheaded the project and wrote the text himself, made full use of the mandate in September, changing the electoral law to diminish the role of political parties.

Critics say the electoral law reforms have hit women particularly hard. Only 127 women were among the 1,055 candidates running in Saturday’s election.