A month before the presidential election in Tunisia, President Cairo Said's rival candidate is in prison. The election commission also rejected three other well-known candidates.
Writes UNN with reference to ORF.
Tunisian presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel was arrested on suspicion of forging signatures for his candidacy. His case was transferred to the criminal section of the court.
Zammel's team rejected these accusations as absurd - they believe that the authorities aim to prevent him from running in the elections.
Zammel was arrested on Monday by investigators and is being held in custody. Charges will be brought against him under Article 161 of Law 161 of May 26, 2014 ... which provides for a sentence of two to five years in prison and a lifetime ban on running for election.
Also on Monday, the election commission rejected three other well-known candidates. The opposition criticized the decision as another example of Tunisian President Said's suppression of political competition. Such developments threaten to undermine the credibility of the vote and deepen the political crisis that has been deepening since 2021.
The head of the election commission, Farouk Boisquier, said he would reconsider this decision before publishing the final list.
For reference
A professor of constitutional law, Cairo Said was elected president of Tunisia in 2019. In 2021, Caid dismissed the prime minister and blocked the work of parliament as the political crisis in the North African country escalated. The president's moves have raised concerns among some Tunisians about the future of the democratic system the country adopted after the 2011 revolution that triggered the Arab Spring.
Current President Qais Said staged a coup d'état on July 25, 2021, under the pretext of an economic and health crisis. Since then, he has completely transformed political governance, moving to a regime with very, very broad presidential powers
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In practice, we have an ultra-presidential regime where the president decides almost everything. From September 2021 to March 2023, Cairo Said ruled by decree-law. With decree 54 against cybercrime, he returned to the liberalization that took place in Tunisia after the 2011 revolution. As for press offenses, until now we had laws that did not provide for imprisonment in libel cases.
Decree-Law 54 is supposed to fight fake news, but many people who claim to be president spread it with hate speech in the morning, noon, and evening, and they almost never care. This decree is mainly aimed at the opposition and critics of the regime, explains Hatem Nafti .