Tunisia - Voting 2024
In mid-Juoy 2024, incumbent President Saied announced the elections would take place on 06 October. The constitution provided citizens the ability to choose their government in free and fair periodic elections held by secret ballot and based on universal and equal suffrage, but this right was tightly circumscribed by the president’s consolidation of power in the executive branch since 2021, leading to what NGOs and international observers described as widespread voter apathy toward legislative elections and the political process more broadly.
On July 25, 2021, citing widespread protests and political paralysis, President Saied took “exceptional measures” under Article 80 of the 2014 constitution to dismiss then prime minister, freeze parliament’s activities for 30 days, and lift the immunity of members of parliament. On August 23, 2021 Saied announced an indefinite extension of the “exceptional measures” period and on September 22, 2021 he issued a decree granting the president certain executive, legislative, and judiciary powers and authority to rule by decree. On September 29, 2021 Saied named Najla Bouden Romdhane as prime minister, and on October 11, she formed a government.
In a July 25, 2022 referendum, 94.6 percent of voters approved a new constitution, much of which President Saied personally drafted. The constitution concentrates powers in the presidency, removes checks and balances on the executive, weakens the parliament, and gives the president enhanced authorities over the judiciary and the legislature. The president appoints the prime minister and cabinet members, has direct control over foreign policy, and can propose legislation. The prime minister is responsible for implementing the president’s policies.
There was a significant increase during the year 2023 in arrests, detentions, and investigations of opposition politicians, journalists and other media figures, lawyers, and other perceived critics of the government in Tunisia. Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government; arbitrary arrests or detentions; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; political prisoners or detainees; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; serious restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists, censorship, or enforcement of or threat to enforce criminal libel laws to limit expression; serious restrictions on internet freedom; substantial interference with the freedom of association, including overly restrictive laws on the organization, funding, or operation of nongovernmental and civil society organizations; restrictions on the right to leave the country; refoulement of refugees to a country where they would face torture or persecution; serious and unreasonable restrictions on political participation; serious government corruption, both high-level and widespread; crimes involving violence or threats of violence against Black Tunisians and sub-Saharan Africans; laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults and the enforcement of those laws; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex persons; and significant restrictions on workers’ freedom of association.
Prisons were grossly overcrowded and had inadequate sanitary conditions. Most prison buildings were originally constructed for industrial uses and converted later into detention facilities; as a result, they suffered from poor infrastructure, including substandard lighting, ventilation, sanitation, cooling, and heating. Health-care services available to inmates were inadequate.
The presidency renewed the state of emergency for periods of one to 10 months continuously since 2015. The country was under a state of emergency since a string of terrorist attacks in 2015, and human rights organizations expressed concern the government used its powers under a 1978 decree law on the state of emergency to place citizens under house arrest without providing these individuals access to the court orders that led to their arrest. The extension allowed the president to prohibit strikes or demonstrations deemed to threaten public order, place under house arrest anyone whose “activities are deemed to endanger security,” and suspend associations on suspicion of participation in harmful acts.
From February 2023 until the end of 2023, authorities arrested and detained more than 30 opposition politicians, lawyers, media figures, business owners, and other perceived critics of the government on a variety of charges, which civil society groups criticized as politically motivated; the majority remained in detention as of the end of the year. Between February 11 and 25, the Ministry of Interior’s counterterrorism brigade arrested 18 opposition politicians whom the government subsequently charged with “conspiracy against the state” under articles of the counterterrorism law and the penal code.
In its annual report, issued in May 2023, the National Union of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT) described the year as the most dangerous for journalists since the SNJT began reporting on this question in 2017. Violence and harassment against journalists continued, according to human rights organizations and independent journalists. The government imposed restrictions on media outlets and sought criminal penalties against members of the media who published items deemed to defame government officials or impact national security.
On 18 April 2023, Tunis police closed the headquarters of both Nahda and the Tunisia Will Movement parties, which hosted activities of the National Salvation Front, an opposition coalition cofounded by Nahda. According to reports from local and international NGOs, authorities banned Nahda meetings from being held in its offices across the country. Authorities arrested and detained most of Nahda’s current and former senior leadership still in the country, including Saied Ferjani, Adhelkarim Harouni, and Ali Laarayedh. Local and international rights groups claimed that arrests and detentions of opposition leaders representing other political parties were also politically motivated, including the arrests of Riadh Mouakher, Walid Jalled, Jawher Ben Mbarek, Ghazi Chaoachi, Ridha Belhaj, and Issam Chebbi. In September 2023, authorities arrested three political opposition figures affiliated with the Nahda party, in the lead-up to the party’s planned October congress.
In the run-up to Tunisia's October presidential election, authorities were stepping up their crackdown on potential candidates and critics of the incumbent president Kais Saied. President Kais Saied has been unable to achieve political successes, and saw no other solution than to have his opponents arrested. Saied now also has full control of the judiciary. There can be no question of free elections in Tunisia.
According to a May 2024 assessment by the Brussels International Center, a think tank, legal risks for potential candidates stem from a September 2022 decree entitled Decree Law 54, which targets freedom of expression and press liberties, and criminalizes the production, promotion, or dissemination of "false news or rumours." The latter is punishable with up to five years in prison, and up to 10 if targeting public officials. "Notable figures who have fallen victim to Decree Law 54 include Salvation Front member Chaima Issa, opposition politician Ghazi Chaouachi, and journalist Zied El Heni," the report states.
A Tunisian court on 06 August 2024 sentenced a prominent critic of President Kais Saied to two years in prison on a charge of insulting the election commission. Abir Moussi reportedly filed to run for president in a vote set for October 6 over the weekend, according to local Mosaique radio. The radio station reported the news about her sentencing on the same day a Tunisian court sentenced four presidential election candidates to eight months in prison. The four candidates — prominent politician Abdel Latif Mekki, activist Nizar Chaari, Judge Mourad Massoudi and Adel Dou — were banned from running for office on a charge of vote buying,
Tunisia's Independent High Authority for Elections announced on 10 August 2024 the preliminary acceptance of three candidates for the presidential elections scheduled for October. The head of the authority, Farouk Bouasker, explained in a press conference "that three candidates, namely: Zuhair Al-Maghzaoui, Kais Saied, and Ayachi Zemal, were initially accepted to run in the upcoming presidential elections." Bouaskar added that the remaining 14 files were rejected, according to what was reported by the Tunisian News Agency.
The commission set strict criteria for accepting nominations, including the requirement to secure endorsements from ten parliamentarians, 40 elected local officials, or 10,000 voters, with the need to secure at least 500 endorsements in each electoral district, which is difficult to achieve. The Commission also requires that the candidate obtain what is known as “Card No. 3,” a document proving the person’s criminal record and issued by the Ministry of Interior. Many candidates complained about not being able to obtain it.
Tunisian President Kais Saied submitted his candidacy file on 05 August 2024 for the elections scheduled for October 6, amid severe criticism of the "restriction" on prominent competing candidates and their failure to submit administrative documents necessary for their files.
Experts believe that the road to the presidential elections is full of obstacles for potential competitors to the president, who was democratically elected in 2019 and who seized power three years ago and is seeking a second term. In response to criticism of the restrictions on candidates and their inability to collect endorsement signatures, the Tunisian president said, “I did not restrict anyone, and the law applies to everyone equally. I am here as a citizen to submit my candidacy.”
The head of Tunisia’s Azimoun party is one of only three approved candidates, running against incumbent Saied and Zouhair Magzhaoui, a former Saied supporter whose pan-Arabist party Echaab party was previously close to the president. Political tensions in Tunisia escalated in the run-up to the October 6 election, particularly after an electoral commission, appointed by Saied, disqualified three prominent candidates earlier this month, prompting protests from opposition groups and civil society.
After a court required Tunisia’s election authority to reinstate the three candidates, one of them — Abdellatif El Mekki — was arrested on charges that stemmed from a 2014 murder investigation that critics have called politically motivated. Saied, who is seeking a second term, won power in a 2019 election. But he later orchestrated a sweeping power grab in 2021, shutting down Parliament and ruling by decree. Opposition figures were also jailed.
On 26 September 2024 Tunisian presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel was sentenced to six months in prison for falsifying documents, the second prison sentence against him in a week, days before the country’s presidential election. Tunisia’s TAP news agency reported that the Criminal Chamber of the Jendouba Court of First Instance sentenced Zammel to six months in prison for “deliberately using a fraudulent certificate”. Last week, Zammel was sentenced to 20 months in prison last week on charges of falsifying popular endorsements. Zammel, a businessman who was little-known to the general public before his presidential bid, was arrested on September 2 on suspicion of falsifying the signatures he gathered to file the candidacy papers needed to run for president. .
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