October 6 Elections: A Lackluster Campaign and a Fixed Conclusion - Mohieddine Lagha
October 6 Elections: A Lackluster Campaign and a Fixed Conclusion - Mohieddine Lagha
As expected, outgoing President Kais Saied won a new term in the presidential elections held on October 6, 2024. He took 90 percent of the votes, a percentage that Tunisians thought was a thing of the past after the 2010 revolution. However, observers of Tunisian political affairs know that this percentage only reflected the choice of 28 percent of those registered on the electoral lists (2.4 out of 9.7 million). It was the lowest percentage recorded in Tunisian elections, following a boycott of nearly three-quarters of voters (with or without a political background). Another important indicator was that nearly 94 percent of young people did not cast their votes.
Regardless of the angle from which these percentages and their future effects on the country are viewed, various components of civil society in Tunisia expect them. It was the culmination of a political path since July 2021, in which President Kais Saied gradually took control of all powers and turned them into intermediaries, paving the way for the last elections to be merely a turning point for his new term.
After dissolving the elected pluralist parliament in 2019 and suspending the post-revolution constitution (2014), the president first issued a decree making the presidency the sole non-reviewable source for enacting decrees and laws (Decree 117 of 2021). He then imposed a new constitution (July 25, 2022) that defined a vertical political organization in which the judiciary was transformed into a mere function, and the legislative authority (distributed across two councils) lacked real influence in monitoring the executive branch.
In this context, the electoral process did not meet the conditions for fair and transparent elections in practice or law. The constitution, drafted by the president himself, did not gain the confidence of the overwhelming majority of Tunisians in 2022. It raised the age of candidacy from 35 to 40 years, prevented Tunisians with dual citizenship from running, and stipulated the need to use a card proving that citizens enjoy their civil rights (card number 3) in advance (despite the Administrative Court dropping this condition in 2014). They were all conditions that limited the freedom to run.
At the same time, there were many examples of the executive authority’s interference in judicial work, including the dissolution of the Supreme Judicial Council and the Minister of Justice’s seizure of all its powers outside the law. The Judges’ Association condemned this authoritarian approach and said it would make the judiciary lose its independence and spread fear among many judges (Statement 09/09/2024). As a result, the judiciary has often become a tool for eliminating political opponents, as happened to most presidential candidates, especially Ayachi Zemal. So far, he has received sentences exceeding twenty-five years on charges of "forging endorsements." However, a statement from one of the branches of the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights confirms that the judiciary has ignored filing a charge of the same type against candidate Kais Saied.
There is further indication that the judiciary is losing its role as an authority that guarantees the transparency of the electoral process. The High Elections Authority (whose members were appointed by the current president) refused to implement the decisions of the Administrative Court, the body that has historically been entrusted with resolving electoral disputes and whose neutrality was recognized by everyone even before the 2010 revolution.
The matter did not end there. Members of parliament loyal to the July 25 path amended the electoral law by withdrawing the jurisdiction to consider electoral disputes from the administrative court and assigning it to the judiciary just two weeks before the elections. This law was even sealed within hours by President Saied to be quickly published in the Official Gazette and become effective. Thus, all civil society components concerned with the electoral issue saw it as a blatant violation of international election standards. Statements by the Judges Association (September 3, 2024) and the Executive Office of the Tunisian General Labor Union (September 22, 2024), the most prominent labor union, highlighted the issue. The Tunisian Network for Rights and Freedoms, which includes more than twenty associations and organizations and nine democratic parties, considered it a prelude to tampering with the election results and called for demonstrations against it.
After President Kais Saied monopolized power on July 25, 2021, the Tunisian political arena witnessed a deliberate weakening of the institutions related to monitoring the elections. One of the most prominent indicators of this was the abandonment of the electoral supervisory body’s electoral base and the approval of the current president's appointment of its president and some of its members. This body is accused of adding detailed and hierarchical conditions that limit the freedom of candidacy and expand the executive administration's discretionary power in the president's service.
In the same context, the Independent High Authority for Audiovisual Communication, entrusted with monitoring the media, suffered a de facto freeze despite the absence of an announced decision to do so. One consequence of this was transforming the media into a tool for promoting the president’s “project” and his opinions. At the same time, the door was closed to dissenting views, whether from parties or even national organizations and associations.
In parallel, restrictions on public and individual freedoms increased, especially freedom of expression and organization, by adopting punitive decrees and laws (notably Decree 54). It led to dozens of citizens getting convicted for criticizing the policies of the president and his aides, and many were sentenced to prison. The country also experienced unprecedented restrictions on associations involved in monitoring elections under various pretexts, which explains the significant decline in the number of observers from civil society associations in polling stations on October 6, as it fell from 27,000 in the 2014 elections to 1,707 in 2024, according to some sources.
To create a political vacuum that would benefit the outgoing president, the executive branch deliberately restricted the work of political parties and civil society organizations. They imposed strict measures that limited their ability to express their positions or organize their activities freely. Several party leaders have been imprisoned on vague and unproven charges such as "conspiracy" for nearly years without trial. During the election campaign, dozens of political activists were arrested, prompting Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard to say that the Tunisian authorities "are launching a clear attack ahead of the elections on the pillars of human rights and the rule of law, failing to fulfill the country's international human rights obligations, and undermining the basic principles of justice and fairness" (September 17, 2024).
In conclusion, there is broad agreement that the recent elections were held within a political framework that did not allow for freedom of electoral propaganda and equal opportunities between candidates and that the results were predetermined. This is not merely the opinion of national human rights organizations such as the Tunisian Network for Rights and Freedoms. It was expressed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, in a statement dated October 15, 2024, in which he considered that the elections came in a "context of pressures" on political and civil society. It urged the Tunisian authorities to "initiate reforms related to the rule of law... in a manner consistent with international human rights law."
Civil society's components continue to wait and see what the president will reveal about the future of his political orientations. They swing between two extremes. The first is hope for a new page that responds to Tunisian aspirations for a civil state that respects human rights comprehensively and universally, believing what some of the president's close associates expressed after the elections about the possibility of opening a new horizon. The second is the fear of the continuation of individual rule and a policy based on marginalizing most of the living components of society, retreating behind general slogans that divide citizens more than they unite them.
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