Tunis: President Kais Saeed won a landslide victory in tunisiaHe maintained his grip on power in Monday’s election after a first term in which he jailed opponents and overhauled the country’s institutions to give them more power.
North African independent higher authority for elections He said Saeed got 90.7 per cent of the votes, a day after exit polls gave him an unassailable lead in the country known as his birthplace. Arab Spring More than a decade ago.
“We are going to rid the country of all the corrupt and the conspirators,” the 66-year-old populist said in a speech at campaign headquarters. He pledged to defend Tunisia from foreign and domestic threats.
This raised concerns among the president’s critics, including University of Tunis law professor Saghier Zakraoui, who said that Tunisian politics is once again “about the absolute power of a single person who puts himself above everyone else and believes that himself has been invested with a messianic message.”
Zakraoui said the election results were reminiscent of Tunisia under President zine al abidin ben aliWho ruled for more than 20 years before becoming the first dictator to be deposed in the Arab Spring uprisings. Saied had received a larger vote share than Ben Ali in 2009, two years before fleeing the country amid protests.
nearest challenger, businessman Ayachi ZammelWon 7.4 percent of the vote after being jailed for most of the campaign while facing multiple sentences for election-related crimes.
Yet Sayeed’s victory was marred by low turnout. Election officials reported that 28.8 percent of voters participated on October 6 – a significantly lower turnout than the first round of the country’s two other Arab Spring elections and indicative of the disinterest of the country’s 9.7 million eligible voters.
Saeed’s most prominent challengers – jailed since last year – were barred from contesting the election, and lesser-known candidates were jailed or kept from voting. Opposition parties boycotted the competition, calling it a sham amid Tunisia’s deteriorating political climate and authoritarian drift.
Over the weekend, there was no sign of elections being held in Tunisia apart from anti-Said protests on Friday and celebrations in the capital on Sunday evening.
“He will re-enter office weakened rather than empowered by these elections,” said Tarek Megerissi, a senior policy fellow at the Washington Post. European Council on Foreign RelationsWritten on X.
Sayeed’s critics pledged to continue opposing his rule.
“It’s possible that in 20 years our children will be protesting on Avenue Habib Bourguiba and asking them to get out,” said Amri Sofian, an independent filmmaker, referring to the capital’s main thoroughfare. “There is no hope in this country.”
Such despair is a far cry from the Tunisia of 2011, when protesters took to the streets demanding “bread, freedom and dignity,” ousting the president and paving the way for the country’s transition to a multi-party democracy.
Tunisia established a new constitution in the following years, creating a Truth and Dignity Commission It won the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing justice to civilians tortured under the former regime and for leading civil society groups to achieve a political settlement.
But its new leaders were unable to shore up the country’s declining economy and quickly became unpopular amid persistent political infighting and incidents of terrorism and political violence.
Against that backdrop, Sayeed, then a political outsider, won his first term in 2019 promising to fight corruption. To the satisfaction of his supporters, in 2021 he declared a state of emergency, suspended parliament and rewrote the constitution to strengthen presidential power – a series of actions that his critics likened to a coup.
Tunisians approved the president’s proposed constitution in a referendum a year later, although turnout declined.
The authorities subsequently began a wave of repression against the once vibrant civil society. In 2023, some of Saied’s most prominent opponents were jailed, including right-wing leader Abir Moussi and party co-founder Islamist Rached Ghannouchi. Ennahda and former Speaker of the Parliament of Tunisia.
Dozens of others were imprisoned on charges including inciting disorder, undermining state security and violating a controversial anti-fake news law that critics say has been used to suppress dissent.
The pace of arrests increased earlier this year when authorities began targeting additional lawyers, journalists, activists, migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and the former head of the Arab Spring Truth and Dignity Commission.
“Authorities were seeing sabotage everywhere,” said Michael Ayari, senior analyst for Algeria and Tunisia at the International Crisis Group.
Dozens of candidates had expressed interest in challenging the president and 17 had submitted preliminary paperwork to run in Sunday’s race. However, Election Commission members approved only three.
The role of the Commission and its members, all of them appointed by the President under its new constitution, came under scrutiny. He disregarded court rulings ordering him to reinstate the three candidates he had rejected. Parliament later passed a law taking away power from the administrative courts.
Such moves have sparked concern internationally, including in Europe, which relies on a partnership with Tunisia to police the central Mediterranean Sea, where migrants attempt to cross into Europe from North Africa.
European Commission foreign affairs spokeswoman Nabila Masrali said on Monday that the EU “takes note of the position expressed by a number of Tunisian social and political actors regarding the integrity of the electoral process.”
