Tunisian President Kais Saied gained a second time period in a low-turnout, managed presidential election Sunday. Tunisia’s election authority reported that Saied gained greater than 90 % of the vote, though lower than 30 % of eligible voters participated. (AP)
Our Take
Saied’s reelection on Sunday hardly comes as a shock. Again in July 2021, lower than two years after he first gained the presidency as a dark-horse outsider candidate, Saied took a sequence of steps that amounted to a self-coup. Since then, he has concentrated energy in his personal arms by ushering in a brand new structure, dismantling checks and balances, and cracking down on any challenges to his rule. Forward of this election, Saied’s most distinguished rivals for the presidency had been both jailed or stored off the poll.
The result of the voting, then, was a foregone conclusion lengthy earlier than Sunday. However it’s nonetheless vital symbolically. In spite of everything, Tunisia was the birthplace of the Arab Uprisings in 2011, and for a decade it was thought of the one true success story to come back out of these widespread actions in opposition to the area’s authoritarian dictatorships. And whereas the nation’s post-revolution democracy was fractious and crisis-prone, it was undoubtedly a step ahead for human rights, particularly without cost speech and political dissent.
