Tunisia Presidential Election : Kaie Saied To Face Two Challengers

President Kaie Saied and two other candidates, Zouhair Maghzaoui and Ayachi Zammel, have been cleared to run for the October 6, 2024 Presidential election. The list of those selected for the upcoming election was made public on Saturday August 10, 2024 by the President of the High Independent Authority for Elections (ISIE), Farouk Bouaske. During a press conference on Saturday, Mr Farouk Bouasker stated that the authority accepted the names of President Saied, the Secretary-General of the People’s Movement, Zouhair Maghzaoui, and the former deputy and head of the Azmoun Movement, Al-Ayachi Zammal. He added after a thorough examination of all the files, that the authority accepted three candidates out of 17 applications, while the remaining files were rejected due to a “lack of sufficient endorsement signatures or failure to meet the regional distribution requirement.” In 2019, 66-year-old Kaie Saied, was democratically elected, but orchestrated a sweeping power grab in 2021 and is now seeking another term in office the in election to be held on October 6, 2024.
To be eligible for the presidency, candidates were to secure endorsements from ten parliamentarians or 40 locally elected officials or gather 10,000 voter endorsements, with at least 500 endorsements in each electoral district. Additionally, the candidate must obtain a Criminal record certificate. Several contenders complained of obstacles in obtaining their criminal records as well as the necessary endorsement forms. Th...