The outgoing head of state Kais Saied, accused of “authoritarian drift”, is considered a favorite, after the elimination of his most serious competitors.
The participation rate during Sunday’s presidential vote in Tunisia stood at 27.7%, the electoral authority Isie announced on Sunday, compared to 45% in the first round of the 2019 election. The president of Isie , Farouk Bouasker, judged this “respectable rate” while this is the lowest participation for a first round of presidential voting since the advent of democracy in 2011 in the country cradle of the Arab Spring.
Outgoing head of state Kais Saied, accused of “authoritarian drift”is considered a favorite in this election, after the elimination of its most serious competitors. The 9.7 million voters (out of 12 million inhabitants) were expected in more than 5,000 polls open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., with expected results “by Wednesday at the latest”according to the electoral authority Isie.
The president of Isie (Independent Higher Authority for Elections) Farouk Bouasker announced at midday a participation rate of 14.2% at 2 p.m. The crowd is already “higher”according to an Isie spokesperson, Mohamed Tlili Mnasri, that in the 2023 legislative elections (11.7%), marked by a record abstention since the advent of democracy in 2011. And “it should exceed 30%”rejoiced Mohamed Tlili, the same level, although considered low at the time, of the referendum vote promoted in 2022 by Kais Saied to revise the Constitution and reestablish an ultra-presidentialist regime.
The “least worst”
In the cradle of the pro-democracy revolts of the Arab Spring in 2011, only two candidates – considered second-rate by experts – were authorized to face Kais Saied, 66, out of initially 17 applicants, dismissed for alleged irregularities.
The outgoing president therefore faces Zouhair Maghzaoui, 59 years old, a former deputy of the pan-Arabist left, and Ayachi Zammel, 47 years old, a liberal industrialist unknown to the general public, who has not been able to campaign because he has been imprisoned since the beginning of September and under three sentences of more than 14 years in prison for suspicion of false sponsorship. While voting in the city center, Hosni Abidi, 40, said he feared manipulation of the ballot boxes: “I don’t want people to choose for me, I want to check my candidate’s box myself”.
Carrier of a left-wing sovereignist project similar to President Saied and considered “a stooge”Zouhair Maghzaoui called on the Tunisians “to vote en masse” so that “Tunisia is a winner”submitting his ballot all smiles under the photographers’ flashes. Wajd Harrar, a 22-year-old student, “too young to vote” in 2019 estimates that at the time, “people chose a bad (president), but I will give my vote to the least worst candidate”.
The president “locked the ballot” and should “win hands down”says the expert from the International Crisis Group, Michaël Ayari. The very selection of candidates was contested for the high number of sponsorships required, the imprisonment of known potential candidates, and the ousting by Isie of the president’s strongest rivals.
Kais Saied, elected in 2019 with nearly 73% of the vote (and 58% participation), was still popular when he seized full powers in the summer of 2021, promising order in the face of political instability. Three years later, many Tunisians criticize him for having devoted too much energy to settling scores with his opponents, in particular the Islamo-conservative Ennahdha party, dominant in the decade of democracy following the overthrow of dictator Ben Ali in 2011.
Also read“He has started to clean up the state, he must continue!” : in Tunisia, the “citizen campaign” of Kaïs Saïed
“New Tunisia”
Since 2021, Tunisian and foreign NGOs and the opposition whose leading figures have been arrested, have denounced a “authoritarian drift” of Kais Saied, via a dismantling of checks and balances and a stifling of civil society with arrests of trade unionists, activists, lawyers and political columnists. According to Human Rights Watch, “more than 170 people are currently detained for political reasons or for exercising their fundamental rights”.
President Saied still enjoys “significant support among the working classes”according to Michaël Ayari, but it is “criticized for its inability to get the country out of a deep economic crisis”. Before the vote, Saied promised a “crossing…towards a new Tunisia” in the next five years, after a first mandate dedicated to fighting “against the forces of conspiracy under foreign influence” having “infiltrated numerous public services and disrupted hundreds of projects”.
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