He is one of three candidates who have been authorized to run in the presidential election of October 6, by the electoral commission. But the former deputy Ayachi Zammel was placed in provisional detention in Tunisia, Wednesday, September 4, as part of an investigation for suspicions of “falsification of sponsorships”his lawyers announced.
Mr Zammel, 43, was arrested and taken into custody on Monday. The industrialist, leader of the little-known liberal party called Azimoun, has been the subject of a committal warrant since Wednesday and is due to appear before the Manouba court on Thursday, his legal team said in a statement.
This decision comes after the exclusion from the race of three other candidates, considered serious rivals to the outgoing president, Kaïs Saïed – running for a second term – by the Electoral Authority (ISIE) earlier this week. The president, democratically elected in 2019, has been accused of authoritarianism since a coup on July 25, 2021 by which he granted himself full powers.
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“Increased repression of dissent,” says HRW
Ayachi Zammel is one of three candidates selected for the list “definitive” unveiled Monday by the Isie, alongside Mr. Saïed and Zouhair Maghzaoui, 59, a former MP for the pan-Arabist left. The Tunisian justice system accuses him of having broken the rules on sponsorships, like the three candidates excluded by the Isie, despite the decision last week by the administrative court to reinstate them in the presidential race.
Abdellatif Mekki, former leader of the conservative Islamist movement Ennahdha, Mondher Zenaïdi, former minister of the Ben Ali regime, and Imed Daïmi, advisor to former president Moncef Marzouki, also close to Ennahdha, were disqualified on August 10 with 14 other applicants, notably for lack of sufficient sponsorship. The Isie justified its rejection of the administrative court’s decisions by a procedural defect, namely a notification beyond a legal deadline of 48 hours.
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On Wednesday evening, the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the Isie to “immediately reverse its decision and end its political interference in the election”stressing that the judgments of the Administrative Court are “legally binding”. “Instead of ensuring integrity”the Isie whose members were “appointed by the president”, “intervened to skew the vote in favor of Saied”HRW lambasted.
Denouncing “increased repression of dissent, muzzling of the media and continued attacks on the independence of the judiciary”HRW said the October 6 vote has become “a parody of the right of Tunisians to free and fair elections”.
On Wednesday, nine political parties and nine NGOs, including the Tunisian Human Rights League, announced the creation of a « Tunisian Network for the Defense of Rights and Freedoms”, which have regressed in the country, according to local and international NGOs since the summer of 2021. The day before, the UGTT trade union center described as“illegal” the decision of the Isie, which represents, in his eyes, “the application of a political decision” et “a biased orientation that will have a prior influence on the results” of the presidential election.
