The outgoing president of Tunisia, Kais Saied, won the presidential election by a wide margin. And this despite a very low participation rate. According to data from the Sigma Conseil institute broadcast on national television, he obtained 89.2% of the votes in the first round, crushing the second candidate, Ayachi Zammel, a liberal industrialist unknown to the general public who only obtained 6.9% of the votes. The third, a deputy from the pan-Arab left Zouhair Maghzaoui, 59, won only 3.9% of the votes, according to Sigma.
The electoral authority Isie announced a participation of 27.7% compared to 45% five years ago in the first round. The president of Isie, Farouk Bouasker, considered this rate “respectable”, even though it is the lowest rate 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 the Arab Spring.
Seventeen applicants at the start… two at the finish
Only Ayachi Zammel and Zouhair Maghzaoui, second knives according to experts, were authorized to face Kais Saied, 66, out of initially 17 applicants, dismissed for alleged irregularities. The opposition, whose leading figures are in prison, and Tunisian and foreign NGOs have criticized a distorted vote” in favor of Kais Saied.
Ayachi Zammel has not been able to campaign because he has been imprisoned since the beginning of September and has three sentences of more than 14 years in prison for suspicion of false sponsorships. Zouhair Maghzaoui was considered “a stooge” because he carried a left-wing sovereignist project similar to that of Kais 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, also stressing that he “s “This is the worst turnout since 2011.”
For the French Maghreb expert, Pierre Vermeren, even if with such a strong abstention, “the democratic legitimacy” of this 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.