Tunisia passes law to strip courts of power over election authority

Tunisia’s parliament amended a law on Friday, stripping power from courts over decisions made by an embattled election authority whose members are appointed by President Kais Saied.

Nine days before the presidential election, a majority of members of parliament voted in favor of amending the young democracy’s first election law as the election authority remains in conflict with courts demanding that it returns three candidates to the ballot.

The move sparked anger from opposition and civil society groups, which say the election authority has acted in concert with Saied to ensure he faces little competition in winning a second term.

Demonstrators picketed in protest of the law outside of parliament throughout Friday.

Since becoming the first country to topple an authoritarian leader in last decade’s Arab Spring, Tunisia has had two presidential elections that observers have judged as democratic. However, the lead-up to this year’s vote has been tainted by quarreling in recent weeks, between the court and the Independent High Authority for Elections, or ISIE.

ISIE’s role came under scrutiny after it dismissed a judicial ruling ordering it to reinstate three potential challengers to Saied who it had left off the ballot, claiming the campaign filings each submitted were incomplete.

Its decision to leave Monther Zenaidi, Abdellatif Mekki and Imed Daimi off of the ballot is among several actions that civil society groups in Tunisia have protested during election season. Both before and afterward, other candidates have been arrested or barred from participation.

Before Friday’s vote, members of parliament accused the court that ordered the candidates to be reinstated of non-neutrality. Some said that its judges were puppets acting on behalf of unnamed foreign interests and parties, echoing the populist and conspiracy theory-laden rhetoric Saied has long employed against his opponents.

Zina Jiballah, an independent member of parliament, argued that “some parties get their orders from abroad,” alleging members of the court have a different agenda.

The North African country’s president has throughout his tenure accused civil society and opposition groups critical of his governance of having nefarious motives and being puppets of foreign countries.

“History will remember that we are not sellers of countries and that Tunisia was saved by honest men and women,” said Sonia Benmabrouk, of the Hope and Work Party during Friday’s debate.

Saied, a 66-year-old populist who won his first term in 2019, will ask voters next weekend to grant him five more years in office.

With the country’s most prominent opposition figures imprisoned, he faces two little known candidates — businessman Ayachi Zammel and Zouhair Maghzaoui, a member of parliament who had previously thrown his support behind the president.

Zammel is in prison on election fraud charges that have been leveled at several Saied opponents.