Tunisia president wins second term after landslide result
In an election that human rights groups have criticised, Tunisia President Kais Saied has won a second term after receiving over 90% of the vote, according to the North African country’s electoral commission.
Only two candidates out of over a dozen were able to stand against the president in the ballot. Only 29% of the more than nine million registered voters in Tunisia took part in the vote. There had been no campaign rallies or public debates with nearly all campaign posters on the streets supporting Saied.
He was widely expected to win once authorities arrested and imprisoned dissidents along with potential rivals. These include one of the two that were challenging him on the ballot.
Tunisia was one of the countries which saw pro-democracy protests in what came to be known as the Arab Spring in late 2010. This resulted in the ousting of long-time dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali early in 2011. It was hailed as a beacon of democracy in the region.
Saied was elected in 2019 on a wave of optimism but since then he has suspended parliament, rewritten the constitution, and concentrated power in his hands.
“According to preliminary results, Saied received 2,438,954 favourable votes,” the country’s Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE) said on Monday, 7th October.
The closest challenger was businessman Ayachi Zammel who received only 7% of the vote. This is despite him being sentenced to 12 years in prison for falsifying documents less than a week before the election. Zouhair Maghzaoui, the third candidate, received almost 2% of the vote.
Five parties had urged supporters to boycott the polls due to fears that they would be neither free nor fair.
This was the third presidential election in Tunisia since Ben Ali was ousted in 2011. He had ruled for over two decades before fleeing to Saudi Arabia after months of protest.
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