(6 Oct 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tunis – 6 October 2024
1. Tunisian President Kais Saied arriving at polling station
2. Wide of people outside polling station
3. Various of Saied leaving
4. WIde of scene
STORYLINE:
Tunisian President Kais Saied arrived at a polling station in Tunis on Sunday to vote in the country’s presidential election.
With his major opponents imprisoned or left off the ballot, Saied faces few obstacles to winning reelection, five years after riding anti-establishment backlash to a first term.
The North African country’s October 6 presidential election is its third since protests led to the 2011 ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali — the first autocrat toppled in the Arab Spring uprisings that also overthrew leaders in Egypt, Libya and Yemen.
International observers praised the previous two contests as meeting democratic norms.
However, a raft of arrests and actions taken by a Saied-appointed election authority have raised questions about whether this year’s race is free and fair. And opposition parties have called for a boycott.
Not long ago, Tunisia was hailed as the Arab Spring’s only success story.
As coups, counter-revolutions and civil wars convulsed the region, the North African nation enshrined a new democratic constitution and saw its leading civil society groups win the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering political compromise.
But its new leaders were unable to buoy its struggling economy and were plagued by political infighting and episodes of violence and terrorism.
Amid that backdrop, Saied, then 61 and a political outsider, won his first term in 2019. He advanced to a runoff promising to usher in a “New Tunisia” and hand more power to young people and local governments.
This year’s election will offer a window into popular opinion about the trajectory that Tunisia’s fading democracy has taken since Saied took office.
Saied’s supporters appear to have remained loyal to him and his promise to transform Tunisia. But he isn’t affiliated with any political party, and it’s unclear just how deep his support runs among Tunisians.
AP video by Annie Risemberg
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