Tunisia election: Kais Saied seeks new presidential term with one candidate in jail

In recent weeks, people have taken to the streets of the capital, Tunis, to protest against President Saied and demand free-and-fair elections.

Although Zammel, who heads the small liberal Azimoun party, was jailed for falsifying voter signatures on his candidacy paperwork, his name will still appear on the ballot paper.

He has denied the charges, the Reuters news agency reports.

The other candidate, former lawmaker Zouhair Maghzaoui, had been a supporter of the president’s 2021 power grab but later became a critic.

“Tunisian authorities are waging a clear pre-election assault on the pillars of human rights,” said Agnès Callamard, the secretary-general of rights group Amnesty International.

Ms Yerkes told the BBC that Tunisia’s leader had “steadily dismantled a decade-worth of democratic progress”.

But he was initially seen in a very different light.

When Saied, an acclaimed legal scholar, won more than 70% of the presidential vote in 2019, he promised “a new Tunisia”.

He represented “the non-elite in Tunisia” and tried “to be a voice for the more marginalised populations”, said Ms Yerkes.

A rejuvenated economy and curbing corruption were a few of the promises he made after his victory.

When asked what he would do about the economy, he told a local newspaper,, external he would “empower the people with tools”. He did not specify what these tools would be.

Nicknamed “the professor”, he had immense support, especially among young people disillusioned by the endless bickering of the political classes.

But in 2021, he initiated what experts describe as a “self-coup” when he dismissed parliament and assumed all executive power.

He justified his actions by saying he needed new powers to break the cycle of political paralysis and economic decay.

That same year he denied having any autocratic aspirations in an interview with the New York Times when he quoted the former French President Charles de Gaulle saying: “‘Why do you think that, at 67, I would start a career as a dictator?’”

Under Saied’s rule, Tunisia has dropped from 53rd place to 82nd on the Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index, which measures political freedoms and pluralism.

“He has already returned Tunisia to autocracy,” said Ms Yerkes.