President Kaïs Saïed, candidate for re-election, urged Tunisians to mobilize in numbers at the polls on Sunday, October 6, in order to prevent any “backtrack”. “It’s a meeting with history. You must not hesitate for a single second”he declared from his campaign headquarters, in a video broadcast Thursday, October 3, once again not failing to warn against his opponents, whom he accuses of conspiring against the national interest with support of “foreign powers”. This will be his only speech as a candidate since the start of the electoral campaign.
Almost five years have passed since the election of Kaïs Saïed, professor of constitutional law with no prior electoral experience, who acceded to the supreme office on October 13, 2019 with 72.7% of the votes in the second round. The one we initially nicknamed « Robocop », because of his monotone tone and his fixed expression, became, at 61 years old, the second president elected by direct universal suffrage during free elections in Tunisia, after Béji Caïd Essebsi.
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How was an outsider, without political party or experience in the state apparatus, able to impose himself at the head of the country? And how did the one who embodied integrity and probity switch to an authoritarian posture after his coup of July 25, 2021, the date on which he assumed full powers?
Born in Tunis on February 22, 1958 in a middle-class family – his father was a civil servant at the Ministry of Finance and his mother, from the Tunisian bourgeoisie, a housewife – Kaïs Saïed grew up in Radès, in the southern suburbs of the capital . He attended Sadiki College, a prestigious establishment having trained state executives and renowned intellectuals.
An affable teacher commanding respect
“His propagandists and supporters highlight the modest origins of this “child of the people”. The person concerned recalls that he lives in the popular district of El Mnihla, in the suburbs of Tunis. But on closer inspection, this modesty is a bit mythologized”judges the essayist Hatem Nafti in his book Our friend Kaïs Saïed, essay on Tunisian democracy (ed. Riveneuve, September 2024).
Kaïs Saïed then continued his studies in public law without ever defending his thesis, becoming an assistant professor specializing in constitutional law. He led his teaching career at the University of Sousse, then at the law faculty of Tunis. Married to judge Ichraf Chebil – who was his former student – he is the father of three children. Numerous testimonies from colleagues and former students describe an affable person who, despite an austere appearance, commanded respect.
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