After a fierce crackdown, Tunisia's president likely to be re-elected
Published on 05/10/2024 - 14:20 GMT+2
Analysts say Sunday's election is unlikely to be free and fair, but the EU is unlikely to speak out as its major concern is stopping the boats.
With his major opponents imprisoned or left off the ballot, Tunisian President Kais Saied faces few obstacles to winning re-election on Sunday, five years after riding anti-establishment backlash to a first term.
The North African country's Oct. 6 presidential election is its third since protests led to the 2011 ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali — the first autocrat toppled in the Arab Spring uprisings that also overthrew leaders in Egypt, Libya and Yemen.
International observers praised the previous two contests as meeting democratic norms. However, a raft of arrests and actions taken by a Saied-appointed election authority have raised questions about whether this year's race will be free and fair. And opposition parties have called for a boycott.
Not long ago, Tunisia was hailed as the Arab Spring’s only success story. As coups, counter-revolutions and civil wars convulsed the region the North African nation enshrined a new democratic constitution and saw its leading civil society groups win the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering political compromise.
But its new leaders were unable to buoy its struggling economy and were plagued by political infighting and episodes of violence.
The EU's Tunisia policy
Meanwhile, in the run up to Sunday's election the EU has been largely silent about the potential for further democratic backsliding. With migration a major political issue that has dominated many recent elections in Europe, a main concern of Brussels is to stop the boats arriving.
A deal between the EU and Tunisia, which was signed in 2023, is designed to slow down the numbers of migrants attempting the dangerous Mediterranean crossing. In return Tunisia receives hundreds of millions of euros of financial aid.
And the number of migrants managing to reach Italy's coastline, which is the nearest bit of EU territory to Tunisia, has fallen dramatically. In 2023 135,000 migrants reached Italy, but by October 4 2024 only 51,000 had done so. Given that the summer is now over, when the majority of migrants attempt the crossing, the number is far lower than last year.
Tragically, bodies continue to wash ashore on Tunisia’s coastline as some of the boats carrying both Tunisians and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa manage only to make it a few nautical miles before sinking.
Saied's government has taken a harsh approach against migrants arriving from sub-Saharan Africa, many who have found themselves stuck in Tunisia while trying to reach Europe.
Saied energised his supporters in early 2023 by accusing migrants of violence and crime and portraying them as part of a plot to change the country’s demography. The anti-migrant rhetoric prompted extreme violence against migrants and a crackdown from authorities. Last year, security forces targeted migrant communities from the coast to the capital with a series of arrests, deportation to the desert and the demolition of tent camps in Tunis and coastal towns.
InfoMigrants, a migrants rights NGO, posted a distressing video on X on September 30 which appeared to show African migrants in distress after being abandoned in the desert.
Analysts, such as Anthony Dworkin of the European Council of Foreign Relations, say the EU also wants to keep President Saied on their side.
The EU, Dworkin wrote in an opinion piece, wants to stop "Russia and China from making further strategic and commercial inroads."
Who is President Kais Saied?
Saied won his first term in 2019 as a political outsider. He advanced to a runoff promising to usher in a “New Tunisia” and hand more power to young people and local governments.
This year's election will offer a window into popular opinion about the trajectory that Tunisia’s fading democracy has taken since Saied took office.
Saied’s supporters appear to have remained loyal to him and his promise to transform Tunisia. But he isn’t affiliated with any political party, and it’s unclear just how deep his support runs among Tunisians.
It’s the first presidential race since Saied upended the country’s politics in July 2021, declaring a state of emergency, sacking his prime minister, suspending the parliament and rewriting Tunisia’s constitution to consolidate his own power.
Those actions outraged pro-democracy groups and leading opposition parties, who called them a coup. Yet despite anger from career politicians, voters approved Saied’s new constitution the following year in a low-turnout referendum.
Authorities subsequently began arresting Saied’s critics including journalist, lawyers, politicians and civil society figures, charging them with endangering state security and violating a controversial anti-fake news law that observers argue stifles dissent.