2024-07-22 10:13:05
Tunisia’s presidential elections will kick off on October 6, as voters head to the polls to choose their representatives in the country’s 12th election..
According to the new Tunisian constitution (dated June 2022), the term of the prospective president will last 5 years, and he will be elected in a free, direct and secret general election during the last three months of the presidential term.
Who are the most prominent candidates so far to run in the presidential elections in Tunisia?
- Kais Saied: The current Tunisian president, and the most prominent and likely candidate in this presidential election
- Three candidates from inside prison are participating in these elections: the head of the Free Constitutional Party, Abir Moussi, the former head of the Democratic Current Party, Ghazi Chaouachi, and the head of the Popular Republican Union Party, Lotfi Mraihi.
- In addition to these, presidential candidate Safi Saeed faces a four-month prison sentence in absentia issued by the criminal division of the Tunis District Court on charges of forgery and fraud, and a search warrant was issued against him last June.
- The head of the Action and Achievement Party and former Minister of Health, Abdel Latif Al-Makki, is also running for the upcoming elections, despite judicial decisions issued against him prohibiting him from traveling, leaving his territorial area, and even appearing in the media or publishing on social media.
- Monzer Zenaidi, who currently resides in France, is considered one of the most prominent political figures who announced his candidacy for these elections. He is one of the prominent figures who held several ministerial positions during the era of former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
- Other party figures, military personnel and judges are also participating in this electoral race, including the former director of the office of the presidency of the republic and head of the “Raqaba” Observatory, Imed Daimi, the head of the Third Republic Party, Olfa Hamdi (who held the position of Director General of Tunisair in 2021), the former Minister of Education, Neji Jalloul (in the governments of Habib Essid and Youssef Chahed), the retired admiral, Kamel Akrout (who held the position of Senior National Security Advisor in 2017), the former brigadier general, Hisham Meddeb (who held the position of official spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior in 2011), the head of the Young Judges Association, Murad Masoudi (among the judges included in the presidential dismissal decisions), the surgeon, Dhaker Lahideb (a former professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Tunis), the media figure Nizar Chaari, the Secretary-General of the Tunisian National Youth Movement Party, Malek Saihi, and the founder of the Movement for the Defense of Tunisia Party, Mohamed El Adel Dou, in addition to other unknown figures.
- The People’s Movement (supporting President Kais Saied) also announced that it will nominate a figure from the movement’s leaders to run in the electoral race, and said that it will reveal him next Tuesday in a press conference.
In this context, political analyst Murad Allala told Sputnik: “The election results seem to be decided in favor of President Kais Saied from now on,” expecting “the results of the presidential elections to be decided from the first round.”
It is noteworthy that these elections are the third after the 2011 revolution, and the elected president is the eighth, since Tunisia gained its full independence.
Since the Independent High Authority for Elections gave the signal to start accepting candidacy applications, the number of candidates has so far exceeded fifty. The Republican Party announced the withdrawal of the name of its candidate for the presidential elections, Issam Chebbi (the party’s secretary-general), after the High Authority for Elections refused to allow his lawyer to obtain the endorsement collection form and asked him for a special power of attorney.
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2024-07-22 10:13:05