Former MP and leader of a small liberal party, Ayachi Zammel announced on Wednesday that he would maintain his candidacy for the presidential election on October 6 after being sentenced to one year and eight months in prison for charges related to falsified sponsorships. After his arrest, the European Union denounced attacks on democracy in Tunisia, where three major candidates were already dismissed in early September by the electoral authority.
He remains in the race despite the sentence handed down to him. One of the three presidential candidates in Tunisia, Ayachi Zammel, was sentenced on Wednesday, September 18 to one year and eight months in prison for charges related to falsified sponsorships but he remains in the running for the elections, one of his lawyers told AFP.
Ayachi Zammel, a former MP and leader of a small liberal party, was given the sentence by the court of first instance in Jendouba, northwest of Tunis, and his team of lawyers “will appeal,” said Abdessatar Messaoudi, chairman of his defense committee.
The sentence was handed down in the absence of the accused, according to the lawyer, who did not give reasons.
According to Mr. Messaoudi, this conviction does not prevent Ayachi Zammel from being a candidate in the presidential election of October 6. “He remains a candidate for the presidential election, and his team will continue its electoral campaign,” said the lawyer, assuring that “nothing can put an end to his candidacy, except death.”
In the previous election in 2019, businessman Nabil Karoui was in the second round while he was in prison.
Ayachi Zammel, an industrialist unknown to the general public until his candidacy, was arrested on September 2, on suspicion of false sponsorships in a case for which the Manouba court, in the suburbs of Tunis, had released him on September 6. But he was immediately re-arrested on the instructions of the Jendouba court for similar charges.
“Continued limitation of democratic space”
President Saïed, 66, democratically elected in 2019, has been accused of authoritarianism since he assumed full powers on July 25, 2021.
The electoral authority Isie published on September 2 a list that it described as “definitive” of the three candidates selected for the presidential election, including Mr. Saied and Mr. Zammel as well as Zouhair Maghzaoui, 59, a former MP for the pan-Arabist left who had supported the presidential coup in the summer of 2021.
The authority then dismissed three other competitors of Kaïs Saïed considered particularly serious, including the former minister Mondher Zenaïdi and Abdellatif Mekki, a former leader of the Islamic-conservative Ennahda movement, rejecting decisions of the administrative court reinstating them in the presidential race.
The NGO Human Rights Watch accused the ISIE of “political interference”, describing the administrative court’s judgments as “legally binding” and of having “intervened to skew the vote in favor of Mr. Saïed”.
The European Union had denounced attacks on democracy in Tunisia after the arrest of Ayachi Zammel and the exclusion of the three other candidates, regretting decisions that had the consequence of “limiting the range of choices for Tunisian citizens”.
“The latest developments demonstrate a continued limitation of democratic space” in Tunisia, deplored a spokesperson for the EU diplomatic service.
