Analysis: With most prominent opposition figures already behind bars in Tunisia, challengers in the October presidential elections are now also being arrested.

“I’m sorry, I can’t take the risk to talk to you. It’s already been quite a journey,” said one presidential candidate after turning down an interview request from The New Arab.

In Tunisia, an increasing number of public figures are declining to engage with foreign media as private meetings with NGOs, embassy officials, or foreign press are being used in legal cases against political opponents of President Kais Saied.

Tunisia is experiencing a never-before-seen presidential election. Under Ben Ali’s regime, the situation was straightforward: even the few opponents who managed to run as candidates could not criticise the regime without risking imprisonment.

During the democratic era, Tunisia saw hundreds of political activists and leaders participate in the presidential elections of 2014 and 2019. However, Kais Saied’s coup in July 2021 marked the beginning of an ongoing authoritarian shift.

The army was deployed to close the elected parliament, hundreds of Tunisians were arrested for opposing the government, an anti-press decree led to widespread censorship (and self-censorship) of mainstream media, and the parliamentary system was abandoned after the largely boycotted 2022 constitutional referendum.

The 2023 Human Rights Report concludes that Tunisia “experienced further regression in terms of human rights and the rule of law during 2023 in the absence of genuine checks and balances on President Kais Saied’s power”.

As Kais Saied announced presidential elections for 6 October, the political climate of the runoff was not the one Tunisians had become accustomed to in recent years.

The leader of the Free Destourian Party and former lawyer of Ben Ali, Abir Moussi, the leader of the Islamist Ennahda party Rached Ghannouchi, the former leader of the centre-left party Ghazi Chaouachi, and at least 60 other political opponents are currently imprisoned.

With most prominent opposition figures behind bars, many sought to exploit this political space to challenge the authoritarian shift and present an alternative vision. However, most were barred from running due to new administrative requirements imposed by the electoral committee (ISIE).

The leader of the Third Republic Party, Olfa Hamdi, argues that this committee cannot be considered either legal or independent.

“ISIE members were appointed by the president himself, who is also a candidate. The moment he becomes a presidential candidate, the committee can no longer be considered independent,” Hamdi explained to The New Arab. She further argues that the committee does not meet the legal requirements outlined in the new constitution imposed by Kais Saied, “which he wrote himself,” insists the former general director of Tunisian Airlines.

Article 134 of the Tunisian constitution clearly stipulates that the members of the electoral committee must be “nine independent, neutral, competent, and honest members”. Olfa Hamdi was barred from running in the presidential elections after the committee raised the minimum legal age for candidates to 40 years.

“They issued an administrative decision to replace the electoral law. They aren’t even bothered to follow the new constitution, as they are replacing organic laws that can only be changed through parliamentary votes by unilateral administrative decisions,” Hamdi said, asserting that President Saied has lost the support of the younger generation.

“He wants to eliminate any form of competition (…) Kais Saied is committing a state crime. He is making the people lose any form of belief in the electoral process,” Hamdi added, emphasising that these elections will not be fair.

“No debates are organised, dozens of journalists are in jail, and the candidates are being bullied into withdrawing. The Tunisian people are not given the right to choose.”

Numerous presidential candidates are facing similar obstacles. Abir Moussi received a two-year sentence for charges of spreading false information and Nizar Chaari was sentenced to eight months in prison. A court barred Lotfi Mraihi from running in elections for life after convicting him of vote-buying in the last presidential election.

One of the administrative measures used to prevent many candidates from running was the requirement of a B3 file, the Tunisian equivalent of a criminal record. Many candidates were unable to obtain the file in time after being instructed to “update their court records” by the Ministry of Interior.

“It’s the first time since 2011 that the transparency of the elections is questioned, and this will undoubtedly lead to a legitimacy crisis for the next presidency,” political author Hatem Nafti told TNA.

Nearly every political decision made by Kais Saied since his coup has been justified by the same reasoning: protecting Tunisia from “foreign plotting,” from “conspiracies,” and from the many unnamed “corrupt” actors who are “controlling the economy”.

Nafti asserts that this is the same logic Saied applies to everything. “Saied has always justified his failures with conspiracy theories: economic difficulties, electricity, or water shortages, etc. Everything is justified by conspiracy. There have always been populist leaders using this rhetoric, but Saied might be the only one in the world who has transformed conspiracy theories into a governing method,” analysed the author.

In this context, Nafti does not expect much from the upcoming elections. “The actors within Kais Saied’s system need him to remain in power because they know that any other form of governance will hold them accountable for the human rights abuses of the past years. Many actors within the Tunisian state had an interest in supporting Kais Saied’s coup in 2021, and now they also have an interest in keeping him in power.”

As a result, increasing numbers of Tunisians have become disillusioned with the political process.

After all these limitations, 15 candidates were banned from participating and only three were announced by the ISIE. They were Kais Saied, Zouhaier Mezghaoui, leader of the El Chaab political party that actively supports Saied’s regime, and lesser-known former MP Ayachi Zammel, who is a soft critic of the authoritarian shift.

Abdallah, a 62-year-old Tunisian voter who has not missed an election since the revolution, did not even bother to register for the upcoming presidential vote in October.

“What’s the point?” joked the retired public sector worker. “If someone could beat Saied, he would have sent him to prison. If I were him, I’d already start organising the celebration party in Carthage.”

More and more Tunisians, regardless of whether they support the president or not, are beginning to think like this: they no longer see the value in voting.

One of the last remnants of the democratic era in Tunisia may be definitively lost after this presidential election.