In an election criticized by rights groups, Tunisian President Kais Saied won a second term with more than 90% of the vote, the electoral commission said.
Only two candidates out of more than a dozen other hopefuls were allowed to run against President Saied in Sunday’s vote, in which only 29% of the more than nine million registered voters took part.
There were no campaign rallies or public debates, and almost all campaign posters on the streets supported the president.
Saied was widely expected to win after authorities arrested and jailed dissidents and potential rivals, including one of the two challengers on the ballot.
In Tunisia, a wave of pro-democracy protests across the Arab world began in late 2010, with longtime autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali ousted early the following year.
The North African country was seen as a beacon of democracy in the region.
But since Saïed was elected in 2019 on a wave of optimism, the 66-year-old has suspended parliament, rewritten the constitution and concentrated power in his hands.
“According to the preliminary results, Saied received 2,438,954 positive votes,” the Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE) said on Monday evening.
Saied’s main challenger, businessman Ayachi Zammel, won 7% of the vote despite being sentenced to 12 years in prison for falsifying documents five days before the election.
Zouhair Maghzaoui, the third candidate, received almost 2% of the votes.
Five political parties had urged their supporters to boycott the elections, fearing they would not be free or fair.
According to the electoral office, the final results of the presidential elections will be announced early next month.
Sunday’s vote was Tunisia’s third presidential election since Ben Ali was ousted in 2011. He had been in power for more than twenty years. he was forced to flee to Saudi Arabia after months of mass protests.
Rights group Amnesty International has denounced “a worrying decline in fundamental rights” under Said’s government, as discontent grows over his perceived authoritarian style of governance.
But Saied has rejected the criticism, saying he is fighting a “corrupt elite” and “traitors.”
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