His freedom lasted only a moment. Arrested on September 2, Ayachi Zammel, one of only two candidates selected by Tunisia’s Independent High Electoral Authority (ISIE) to face President Kaïs Saïed during the presidential elections scheduled for October 6, was released three days later by the court in La Manouba, outside Tunis, before being immediately arrested by the National Guard.
The candidate, who has been prosecuted in more than twenty cases related to the falsification of sponsorships necessary for the presentation of his candidacy, was immediately transferred to Jendouba, a town located in the north-west of the country, more than 150 kilometres from the capital. He was brought before an investigating judge the following day, 6 September, and was again placed in preventive detention pending trial. “It’s not a campaign, it’s an action movie”commented Dalila Ben Mbarek Msaddek, a lawyer and political opponent, on her Facebook page.
In Tunisia, the electoral campaign has not yet officially begun, but with one month to go, the accumulation of arrests and rejections of candidates reveals a certain fever within the Kais Saied regime. “Kaïs Saïed panics and it showsanalyzes Hatem Nafti, essayist and political analyst, author of the book Tunisia: Towards an authoritarian populism? (ed. Riveneuve, 2022). At every meeting with his ministers he mentions electoral plots against him. He absolutely wants to win in the first round, but contrary to what some think, he is not sure of winning because he does not control the entire system.
The campaign, which is due to be officially launched on 14 September, has already been marked by several twists and turns during the submission of candidacy files. Despite various obstacles, 17 candidates managed to submit their files, although some were incomplete. On 10 August, when the preliminary list was announced, the ISIE finally validated only three candidacies: that of Ayachi Zammel, a former MP and leader of a small, little-known party; that of Zouhair Maghzaoui, another former MP and leader of the Popular Movement; and therefore that of Kaïs Saïed.
At the end of August, the administrative court of Tunisia surprised by reinstating three other candidates in the race: Mondher Zenaïdi, former minister of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali and considered the most serious competitor of the outgoing head of state, Abdellatif Mekki, former minister affiliated with the Islamo-conservative party Ennahda, and Imed Daïmi, vice-president of Hizb El-Harak, the party of former president Moncef Marzouki. But this judicial decision, supposedly definitive, and which could have changed the cards of an election until then without suspense, was not implemented. On 2 September, Farouk Bouasker, president of ISIE, announced the final list of candidates, keeping only the three initially selected despite the ruling of the administrative court.
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