Presidential elections will be held October 6, 2024
Kais Saied chose Borj el-Khadra, a symbolic place located in the far south of Tunisia, on the border with Algeria and Libya, to run for the next election.
The incumbent president, elected in 2019 and who gave himself “full constitutional powers” in 2021, set the election for October 6 in early July but has not yet said whether or not he will run.
The announcement was made via a video posted on government social media, in which the 66-year-old leader explains that he feels compelled to answer “the sacred call of the homeland.” The announcement came on the same day that the Tunisian court ordered the imprisonment of Lotfi Mraihi, a top opposition leader sentenced to eight months in prison with a lifetime ban on running in presidential elections. Mraihi, who has already announced his appeal, is accused of vote buying in 2019. According to Reuters, opposition parties accuse Saied’s government of pressuring the judiciary to crack down on his rivals in the 2024 elections.
It is the buying and selling of votes that is one of the strengths of the speech in which Saied chose to run for office: “I chose this place, a symbol of strength and pride, to remind that Tunisia is a united nation, from the far north to the far south, and it will remain united. Today, I urge all who are preparing to support candidates to beware of all kinds of deception. Some of them have been exposed, and others will soon be revealed. I also urge the population not to accept even a thousandth of a share from anyone, I also urge them to no longer personify power. We will all be gone, and only Tunisia will remain.”