Tunisia: Submission of Documents by Presidential Hopefuls Starts

Tunisia’s election commission said Monday that the submission of documents by candidates for the October 6 presidential election was open.

The exercise will last until August 6.
Candidates are required to submit a list of their endorsers in paper and electronic formats, including comprehensive details of each endorser. For those representing political parties, the electoral authority requires that the candidacy forms bear the signature of the party’s legal representative.
It says the strict rules are meant to guard the transparency and integrity of the process.
Leading opposition figures have been arrested or withdrew their interest in recent weeks.
Incumbent President Kais Saied is widely expected to seek re-election. In 2021, Saied grabbed power when he dismissed parliament, attracting widespread condemnation.
He then oversaw the drafting of a new constitution which gives the President overarching powers while weakening the oversight role of parliament.
Saied defended his power grab as necessary to fight corruption.
Noting that Tunisia’s leader has scheduled the next presidential election for October but did not say if he will seek a second term after five years at the head of the North African nation once seen as a model of democracy for the Arab world.
President Kais Saied set Oct. 6 for the election in a decree issued late Tuesday, according to a statement from the presidency. Saied’s first term ends on Oct. 23.
The election will be voters’ first chance to evaluate Saied’s tenure amid an economic crisis and the drift into authoritarianism.
Saied ran in 2019 on a populist, anti-corruption platform that energized Tunisians disillusioned with party politics and economic stagnation following the Arab Spring pro-democracy protests that in 2011 toppled the country’s longtime dictator.