If the body in charge of supervising the elections in Tunisia, like the President of the Republic Kais Saïed, continues to give reassuring signals regarding the holding of the presidential election at the end of 2024, neither the political climate nor the legislative framework allow us to be categorical today, only 6 months before the theoretical fateful deadline.
“Once the second parliamentary chamber has been established, the electoral body will look into preparations for the next presidential election, including, in particular, the development of the calendar relating to this deadline,” says Mohamed Tlili Mnasri, member of the Body independent superior for elections (ISIE) whose details on this subject were rare.
In a statement on February 25, 2024, in Sfax on the sidelines of an information day on the completion of the establishment of the second parliamentary chamber, scheduled for next April, Mnasri indicated that the next presidential election will take place by the date planned, either during September or next October at the latest, which coincides with the last three months of the presidential term, but by the old Constitution of 2014. This is one of the subtleties passed over in silence by the current head of state, who has neither officially declared himself a candidate (even if this seems certain), nor determined whether his current expired mandate would be counted under the new Constitution of 2022 and on which he did not take the oath.
Regardless, Mnasri added that the electoral law relating to the 2014 presidential election would maintain the same conditions for presidential candidacy, “except a minimal difference made by the 2022 Constitution in the level age, nationality and enjoyment of civil and political rights, by the provisions of the ISIE regulatory decision.”
During this information day, a presentation was also given on the different stages of the process of creating local councils, the rules of organization and operation of regional councils, the procedures for election of district councils as well as on the National Council of Regions and Districts. So many aspects of the reorganization of local governance as imagined by the current President Saïed known as “reconstruction from below”, which only decentralizes a power that is more centralized than ever in Carthage.
Opposition skepticism
The political activist Adnane Belhajamor supports the currently imprisoned candidate Abir Moussi, and denounces the specter of an election without the shadow of competition, “in normal times and even in pseudo-democracy, an election year, especially a presidential year, would be synonymous with revitalization of political life and debates around the alternatives and respective programs of each, even verbal jousting between the favorites around their ideas, etc. However, instead, we have a power which after five years of exercise does not display any significant results that could be debated, at a time when the country is recording 0.4% growth.”
Unlike Belhajamor who nevertheless continues to believe in the possible holding of a sham election, other components of the Tunisian opposition consider that the current ambient lethargy of the political scene does not suggest in any way the organization of the ballot in question, even less on the date provided for this purpose.
This is notably the posture of Mohammed Abbou, co-founder of the Democratic Current party, and for whom: “Kaïs Saïed does not intend to organize a presidential election in 2024”. As proof, he cites the latter’s statements on the occasion of the commemoration of the 23rd anniversary of the death of Habib Bourguiba. Saïed declared there that he “will never cede the country to those who have no patriotism”.
This is also the position of former minister and MP Samir Dilou, who believes that a presidential election will only take place in the absence of real competition. For Dilou, the ISIE is also today “subject to the decisions of political power” and is now made up of members appointed by the Head of State, he recalls. According to the lawyer, the declarations of the president of the body, Farouk Bouasker, on the subject of a presidential election would thus represent simple declarations of intention.
