Tunisia's legislative and presidential elections will be held before the end of 2014, local media cited Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa and Head of Elections Board (ISIE) Chafik Sarsar as saying on Tuesday.
Significant progress has been made in preparing for the next elections, Jomaa said following his meeting with elections board members on Monday evening.
The ISIE perviously asked the government for 10 million dinars (6.3 million U.S. dollars) as an election budget and Jomaa said his government has granted the elections board an advance in March.
Sarsar explained that the first estimation of the election expenses was around at 100 million dinars (63 million dollars), but the ISIE is working on reducing the cost in order to guarantee that the elections will happen by 2014.
In addition, two scenarios are currently being discussed about the election: the first one is to hold both the legislative and presidential elections simultaneously, and the second one is to hold them separately and have two presidential election rounds.
No final decision has been reached yet, and political parties have been divided about the two options.