Head of Tunisia’s electoral commission Farouk Bouaskar announced Monday that 1,706 candidates across the country will compete for the 161 seats of the lower house of parliament.

Tunisia’s parliamentary elections are scheduled for December 2022.

Bouaskar said in press statements that the commission has received around 326,000 recommendations from registered voters for a number of candidates, who will be elected directly instead of via party lists.

On Sunday, the electoral commission published a list of its 27 central offices distributed around different areas, where candidates are to submit their nominations.

President Kais Saied vowed to make new changes to the electoral law he enacted in September, citing “manipulation” in the registration process of nominated candidates.

Several human rights organizations interested in electoral issues and a political party participating in the upcoming parliamentary elections expected Saied to draw back the conditions stating that the candidate shall obtain 400 endorsements from voters within the district, half of them women and a quarter of them under the age of 35, according to the law’s updated article 21.

Saied has not yet announced the expected amendment to the electoral law.