Tunisia: Election Law Changes Days Before Voting

Tunisia will go to the polls to choose a new president on October 6. A few days before the election, parliament voted to amend the electoral law.

The election campaign, which began on September 14 after appeals, withdrawals, and boycotts, features only three admitted candidates: former parliamentarian and secretary general of the Popular Movement Zuhair Maghzaoui, engineer and founder of the movement Azimoun Ayachi Zammel (in prison since September 19, 2024 with a 26-month sentence for “sponsorship fraud”), and apparently outgoing president Kais Saied. Saied was legitimately elected in 2019 and has brought a hyper-presidential turn to Tunisian politics during his mandate. However, higher-level personalities such as former Ben Ali minister in exile in Paris since 2011 Mondher Zenaidi, former health minister and leader of the Labor and Achievement Party Abdellatif Mekki, former right-hand man of Moncef Marzouki of Tunisia’s first president after the Arab Spring Imed Daimi, were not admitted (after winning an appeal that was later overturned due to a procedural defect).

On September 27, Tunisia’s parliament approved a change to the electoral law that essentially removes the ability of the administrative court to invalidate the October 6 presidential election. This is the same court that accepted the appeals of Zenaidi, Mekki, and Daimi.

According to the opposition, UGTT, which is the main trade union in the country and an association of judges, the recently approved reform jeopardizes the independence of the judiciary and raises suspicions of wanting to interfere in the electoral round by undermining the state’s legal framework.