Daily Times

Tunisians head to the polls Sunday for a presidential election in which analysts say incumbent Kais Saied is poised for victory with his most prominent critics behind bars.

The near-certainty of Saied’s win has created a mood of resignation in opposition ranks and made for a deeply lacklustre campaign.

There have been no campaign rallies or public debates and nearly all the campaign posters in city streets have been the incumbent’s. It is a major step back for a country that long prided itself as the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 and a contrast even with the 2019 election that thrust Saied, then a little known law lecturer, to power. The political outsider won by a landslide, with 73 percent of the vote in a second round runoff that saw turnout of 58 percent.

He had campaigned on a platform of strong government after nearly a decade of deadlock between Islamist and secular blocs since the 2011 revolution.

In 2021, he staged a sweeping power grab, dismissing the Islamist-led parliament. The following year he rewrote the constitution.

A quickening crackdown on political dissent which has seen jail sentences for critics across the political spectrum has drawn mounting criticism at home and abroad. Jailed opposition figures include Rached Ghannouchi, head of the Islamist-inspired opposition party Ennahdha, which dominated political life after the revolution. Also detained is Abir Moussi, head of the Free Destourian Party, which critics accuse of wanting to bring back the ousted regime. Saied’s critics say that higher thresholds for candidate registration have also been exploited by the incumbent’s campaign.

Fourteen hopefuls were barred from joining the race, after election organisers ruled they had failed to provide enough signatures of endorsement, among other technicalities. Some have been jailed after being convicted of forging signatures.

Human Rights Watch and other rights groups have charged that the organisers’ decision to reject the candidates was political.

Hatem Nafti, a political commentator and author of a forthcoming book on Saied’s authoritarian rule, said rights and freedoms have been curtailed since Saied’s “coup d’etat” in 2021.