Tunisia: Saied Wins About 90% of Votes

All observers knew that Kais Saied would have no trouble establishing himself as president of Tunisia. And exit polls at the end of Election Day on October 6, 2024, give as much as 89% of the vote to the 66-year-old president, elected in 2019 with broad consensus and leading to a turn that analysts call “hyper-presidentialist.”

Saied had few rivals in this election, and the pulse of real consensus had to come from the turnout: opposition forces tried to boycott the vote after most candidates were rejected by the electoral commission – only 27.7% of Tunisians came to the polls. The lowest rate and lowest level of participation recorded since the Arab Spring began in Tunisia and Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia.

Saied is now just waiting for the official announcement of the results, and in the meantime he has appeared on television, explaining, as reported by Italian news agency ANSA, that the result “completes the revolution. We will build, and build as the people want, and cleanse the country of all the corrupt and conspirators, and I am not exaggerating when I say conspirators. The Tunisian people have demonstrated deep awareness and unprecedented historical resilience.”

However, two other candidates, Ayachi Zammel (currently in prison) and Zuhair Maghzaoui, have challenged the exit polls as incorrect, although according to the exit polls Saied is considered the winner with 89.2% of the vote, followed by Zammel with 6.9% and Maghzaoui with 3.9%.