Salaheddine Jourchi
Once again, Tunisia’s elite has been stunned by President Kais Saied’s sweeping victory at the polls. Every wager and initiative put forward by the parties and by independent civil-society organisations failed to shift the balance of power, leading many of them to admit defeat, openly or tacitly, and to call for a moment of reflection, even though the contest was unequal on more than one front.
The first question that comes to mind is perhaps this: were the elections of 6 October rigged?
Those who raised the question started from the magic number that has resurfaced: the outgoing president’s victory with 90.69% of the vote, a figure hardly conceivable in a democracy. Yet many well-informed sources who followed the voting ruled out any documented tampering with the ballot boxes. Even the campaign team of the independent candidate Ayachi Zammel acknowledged that there had been no fraud. This only deepened the perplexity among Kais Saied’s opponents and observers of Tunisian affairs.
The process can only be understood by going back to its beginnings
To assess the event objectively, we must go back over everything that preceded the voters’ trip to the polls. It was a long process that began on the night of 25 July 2021, when President Kais Saied, backed by the state’s hard institutions, stripped parliament of its powers, dismissed the government and set about building a political system different from the one that emerged after the revolution. Under Decree 117, the President of the Republic acquired full powers to do as he wished, without going through the various constitutional institutions established after 14 January 2014.
It was in this context that the ground was prepared for a second term for President Kais Saied. After he wrote the 2022 constitution, the electoral law was amended to suit the new phase, removing many of the rights candidates had previously enjoyed. Even so, around a hundred people expressed the wish to stand. Many soon withdrew, fearing a confrontation with the legal, financial and security institutions of the state, and only 17 candidates remained. These were then dealt with by the Independent High Authority for Elections, which eliminated most of them through what human rights organisations described as “devious procedures that undermine the principle of the right to stand for election”. The Authority recognised only three candidates, Kais Saied among them.
The excluded candidates did not give up. They turned to the Administrative Court, Tunisia’s highest judicial body in such matters, which found in favour of three of them – Mondher Zenaidi, Imed Daimi and Abdellatif Mekki – and ruled that they must be reinstated in the race. Instead of complying with the ruling, the Elections Authority, whose members are appointed by the presidency, refused to implement it, an unprecedented step. Legal proceedings were brought against the three instead: one of them (Abdellatif Mekki) was barred from standing for election for life, and international search warrants were issued against the others.
At this turning point, the ball passed to parliament, which bowed to political demand and voted to change the rules of the game once more, transferring some of the Administrative Court’s powers to the Court of Appeal – a move constitutional lawyers regarded as a serious breach of judicial independence. Since the presidency had already entered into a battle with the judiciary, refusing to call it a “power” and reducing it in the 2022 constitution to a mere “function”, judges had lost the ability to protest against, or refuse to implement, decisions signed by President Kais Saied.
This hasty change to the powers of the judicial bodies was driven by the authorities’ fear that the Court of Cassation might issue a new ruling challenging the legitimacy of the elections and their results, which would have plunged the state into a serious crisis.
Thus one top-down measure followed another, narrowing the space for electoral pluralism and making the race between the candidates unequal and unfair.
The opposition changes tactics
At this stage, President Saied’s opponents weighed up the options available, and some leaned towards backing one of the officially approved candidates. Some called for support for Ayachi Zammel as an independent candidate: a businessman with no political past and liberal leanings. Believing that the road was open, he stepped forward to exercise his right to fair competition, only to find himself in prison, sentenced to around twenty years for allegedly falsifying the names of his supporters. His backing nonetheless held, and his supporters believed their candidate had reached the second round, but the official results proved otherwise.
This was the marathon process that paved the way for the elections and governed their every stage, twist and turn.
The opposition’s impasse and its responsibility for failure
The opposition bears a significant and heavy responsibility for the way this political milestone ended.
It is true that parties and independent associations denounced the process one after another, especially once intentions became clear: they issued statements, and most ended up organising a series of protests. Yet the opposition kept its traditional divisions, which predate Kais Saied’s monopoly of power. Its disparate components refused to coordinate with one another, even though many of their leaders were in prison. This left the opposition exposed before public opinion and stripped it of political and organisational weight in the eyes of the authorities and external actors. Its confusion became especially visible as the election approached. It was divided over whether to take part, leaving its supporters without a compass, and in the end all the parties leaned towards a boycott, including the Ennahda movement – still regarded as the largest party thanks to its broad membership and the solidity of its structures, despite the splits within its ranks. A boycott is the comfortable option: it does not affect the course of events and gives the outgoing president a better chance of a sweeping victory. And that is what happened on election day.
The opposition in the dock
The opposition forgot the negative mark its own record had left in the memory of ordinary Tunisians – a factor Kais Saied’s supporters exploited in their latest campaign, stoking fears of a return of the leading figures of the parties that governed during what they call the “black decade”. That campaign had a wide impact among those who did vote, who sided overwhelmingly with the regime.
The opposition also underestimated Kais Saied himself, treating him with a great deal of condescension and disdain. It failed to see that the man had strengths that won him the trust of a significant part of the Tunisian street (Saied received two million four hundred thousand votes). Although turnout, at no more than 28%, was among the lowest in the world, this changed nothing: the man secured another five years in power.
The opposition counted on Saied’s weak record over the past five years and on the severe economic crisis the country is going through, believing that the political isolation of the presidency and the decline of freedoms in the country would erode his electoral support. The elections showed that none of this affected his popularity among his loyal supporters, and that the public opinion on his side still saw him as a clean man, independent of the various lobbies. That public also believed the official narrative that forces are behind Tunisia’s impoverishment and working against the country’s interests, and it valued President Saied’s stand against the International Monetary Fund, his efforts to reduce and shed foreign debt, and his rejection of Western domination. These aspects played an important part in his success and defeated the opposition’s wagers and expectations.
An uncertain, two-sided future
Only the coming days will show whether President Saied is able to adjust his style of government, narrow the gap between social and political groups, and normalise relations with the old and new elites, or whether he will carry on in the same direction, using a heavy hand against his opponents whatever their colours and positions. Only the coming days will judge the man and his record, for better or for worse, despite the questions raised by any attempt to foresee Tunisia’s near and more distant future.
