The filing of candidacies for the presidential elections in Tunisia on 6 October officially began today, with an unknown worker becoming the first to file a candidacy with the Tunisian Electoral Authority (Isie, for its French acronym).
Fethi Krimi, a 59-year-old factory worker, was the first to present his candidacy, according to information and photographs broadcast by Mosaïque FM radio and other local media.
According to Isie, more than 100 potential candidates have already collected the necessary sponsorship forms and have until August 6 to present their candidacies.
A first list of candidates will be announced by Isie on August 11 and, according to local media, the total number of candidates is unlikely to exceed ten, given the strict criteria imposed.
A number of personalities and activists have announced their intention to run in the elections, including Mondher Zenaïdi, a former minister in the regime of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, former presidential adviser and retired military man Kamel Akrout and rapper Karim Gharbi, known as 'K2Rhym'.
Since he promoted and led the palace coup d'état on 25 July 2021, President Kais Saied, who recently announced his candidacy for a second term, has monopolized all power.
His opponents and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have denounced the regression of rights and freedoms since that date and criticized the difficult conditions imposed on candidates.
The main opposition figures are in prison, including the leaders of the Islamo-conservative Ennahdha movement and the leader of the Free Destourian Party, Abir Moussi, who is nostalgic for the dictatorships of Bourguiba and Ben Ali.
The conditions for candidacy are very strict: candidates must obtain the sponsorship of ten members of the Assembly of People's Representatives, the same number of members of the National Council of Regions and Districts (the upper house of parliament), 40 mayors of local authorities or 10,000 voters registered in 10 constituencies, with a minimum of 500 signatures from voters in each constituency.
Candidates must present their candidacy directly or through a legal representative at the Isie headquarters in Tunis.
Candidates must have Tunisian nationality without dual nationality, be the children of Tunisian parents and grandparents without interruption, be Muslim and be at least 40 years old. They must have a clean criminal record and cannot have been convicted of any penalty that would make them ineligible to run for office.
In December 2022 and January 2023, with Saied in power, Tunisia held two rounds of legislative elections, boycotted again by the opposition, designed to elect a parliament with limited powers and in which the turnout rate was just 11.2%, the lowest since the 2011 revolution, after years of record turnout, which reached nearly 70% in the 2014 legislative elections.
The legislative elections were then seen as one of the final stages in the calendar set by Saied to establish an ultra-presidential system, the ultimate goal of the President who, in 2021, in a "coup d'état", assumed full powers, dissolving the government and parliament.
No comments:
Post a Comment