Election in Tunisia | The outgoing president given favorite

(Tunis) Tunisians continued to go to the polls on Sunday for a presidential election, in which the outgoing head of state Kais Saied, accused of “authoritarian drift”, is considered the favorite, after the elimination of his most serious competitors.

The 9.7 million voters (out of 12 million inhabitants) are expected in more than 5,000 polls open from 8 a.m. (3 a.m. Eastern time) to 6 p.m., with results expected “by Wednesday at the latest” , according to the electoral authority Isie.

In the cradle of the pro-democracy revolts of the Arab Spring in 2011, only two candidates – considered second-best by experts – were authorized to face Mr. Saied, 66, out of initially 17 applicants, dismissed for alleged irregularities.

The president of Isie Farouk Bouasker announced at midday a participation rate of 14.2% at 1 p.m. (8 a.m. Eastern time).

The attendance is already “higher”, according to an Isie spokesperson, Mohamed Tlili Mnasri, than in the 2023 legislative elections (11.7%), marked by a record abstention since the advent of the democracy in 2011. And “it should exceed 30%”, rejoiced Mr. Tlili, i.e. the same level, although considered low at the time, of the referendum vote promoted in 2022 by Kais Saied to revise the Constitution and restore an ultra-presidentialist regime.

From the opening, several offices in the city center experienced a large influx of people, especially middle-aged or elderly people, very few young people, noted AFP.

“I came to support Kais Saïed, the whole family will vote for him,” declares Nouri Masmoudi, 69 years old.

Mr. Saied voted with his wife in his usual center in the wealthy district of Ennasr where the president of the office Aycha Zidi noted a “very respectable flow” of voters.

The “least worst”

The outgoing president faces two competitors: Zouhair Maghzaoui, 59, a former member of the pan-Arabist left, and Ayachi Zammel, 47, a liberal industrialist unknown to the general public, who was unable to campaign because he is imprisoned. since the beginning of September and facing 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-sovereignist project similar to President Saied and considered as “an argument”, Mr. Maghzaoui called on Tunisians “to vote en masse” so that “Tunisia is a winner”, by submitting his ballot with a smile under the photographers’ flashes.

Wajd Harrar, a 22-year-old student, “too young to vote” in 2019 believes that at the time, “people chose a bad [président]but I will give my vote to the least worst of the candidates.”

The president “locked the vote” and should “win hands down,” says International Crisis Group expert 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.

Mr. Saied, elected in 2019 with nearly 73% of the vote (and 58% participation), was still popular when this specialist in constitutional law with the incorruptible image 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 Islamoconservative Ennahdha party, dominant in the decade of democracy following the overthrow of dictator Ben Ali in 2011.

“New Tunisia”

Since 2021, Tunisian and foreign NGOs and the opposition whose leading figures have been arrested, have denounced an “authoritarian drift” by Mr. Saied, via a dismantling of counter-powers 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 Mr. Ayari, but he is “criticized for his inability to get the country out of a deep economic crisis”.

Before the vote, Mr. Saied promised a “crossing… towards a new Tunisia” in the next five years, after a first mandate devoted to fighting “against the forces of conspiracy under foreign influence” having “infiltrated numerous public services and disrupted hundreds of projects.”