Tunisia sets elections for October

 

muhamad yehia

Tunisia’s increasingly authoritarian leader has scheduled the next presidential election for October without saying whether he will seek a second term after five tumultuous 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.

However, Saied reversed some of Tunisia’s democratic gains, rewriting the constitution to consolidate his power and jailing critics, including from the largest political parties. Analysts expect he will run for a second, five-year term given that the new constitution grants him full powers.

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