Election in Tunisia | Outgoing President Kais Saied declared winner

(Tunis) The outgoing head of state in Tunisia Kais Saied, accused of “authoritarian drift” by the opposition and civil society, won the presidential election on Sunday with more than 89% of the vote, marked by very low participation, according to exit polls.

According to the results of the Sigma Conseil institute broadcast on national television, Mr. Saied obtained 89.2% of the votes in the first round, crushing the second candidate, Ayachi Zammel, 47, a liberal industrialist who did not obtained only 6.9% of the votes. The third, a deputy from the pan-Arab left Zouhair Maghzaoui, 59, won 3.9% of the vote. Preliminary official results are expected Monday afternoon.

Participation stood at 27.7% compared to 45% five years ago in the first round, according to the electoral authority Isie. Its president, Farouk Bouasker, deemed this rate “respectable”, although it is the lowest for a first round of presidential voting since the overthrow of dictator Ben Ali in 2011 in this country, which was the cradle of the democratic uprisings of Arab Spring.

Only MM. Zammel and Maghzaoui – second knives according to experts – had been authorized to face Mr. Saied, 66, out of initially 17 applicants, dismissed by Isie for alleged irregularities. The opposition, whose leading figures are in prison, and Tunisian and foreign NGOs have criticized a vote “distorted in favor of Mr. Saied”.

Ayachi Zammel, unknown to the general public, was unable to campaign because he has been imprisoned since the beginning of September and sentenced three times to more than 14 years in prison for suspicion of false sponsorships.

Mr. Maghzaoui was considered “a stooge”, because he carried a left-wing sovereignist project similar to that of Mr. Saied, whom he supported until recently.

“The legitimacy of the election is necessarily tainted when the candidates who could overshadow Mr. Saied were systematically excluded,” Tunisian political analyst Hatem Nafti commented for AFP.

The candidate selection process had been highly 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, including Mondher Zenaidi, a former minister of Ben Ali.

For the French Maghreb expert, Pierre Vermeren, even if with such a strong abstention, “the democratic legitimacy” of the election is “weak”, “Tunisia has a president and the majority of Tunisians let it happen”. He noted analogies with neighboring Algeria, “where no one questions President” Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

After the polls were announced, around 400 of the president’s supporters came out to celebrate his victory, waving flags in front of the municipal theater in central Tunis, chanting “the people want Kais again”.

A group cheerfully sang the national anthem. Oumayma Dhouib, 25, said she was “very happy” with the victory of “Kaisoun”, an affectionate nickname. The young woman assured that she was “convinced by his ideas and his politics”, like his mother Khadija, 52, who “trusts” him.

A hardening

Mr. Saied, elected in 2019 with nearly 73% of the votes (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 Islamo-conservative Ennahdha party, dominant during the decade of democracy following the overthrow of dictator Ben Ali.

According to expert Nafti, Mr. Saied “lost almost a million votes” compared to 2019.

Since his coup in the summer of 2021, Tunisian and foreign NGOs and the opposition 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.”

According to analyst Hatem Nafti, this new electoral victory may herald a further hardening of power towards critical voices, because Kais Saied will be able to “enforce his coronation to justify the repression”.

Speaking on Sunday evening in his campaign headquarters, Mr. Saied said, in a martial tone, that he wanted to “continue the 2011 Revolution” and build “a country cleansed of corrupt people and conspiracies”. “Tunisia will remain free and independent and will never accept foreign interference,” he added.