The Tunisian authorities are gradually turning the presidential elections into a farce. After imprisoning, on unfounded charges, many potential political competitors who have expressed their intention to run, or prosecuting others through fabricated cases, and placing the non-independent electoral body under supervision, they are imposing almost impossible conditions on candidates, they impose almost impossible conditions on candidates, whether by requiring the Ministry of the Interior to issue ballot paper number 3 to candidates when the legal deadline for filing candidacies (August 6, 2024) is about to expire, ; or by imposing a new method for voter sponsorship of candidates (minimum 10.0000 from 10 different constituencies, each contributing 500 voters, with publication of the list).
After rejecting the candidacies of unjustly imprisoned political leaders such as Issam Chebbi, Ghazi Chaouachi and Abir Moussi, the authorities are now attacking those responsible for collecting sponsorships for declared candidates. Many citizens have complained of police harassment, night-time arrests and direct threats aimed at intimidating them into leaving the way clear for Kaies Said. Kaies Said does not hesitate to use all the means of the State, including the public and private media, the police apparatus and regional and local administrations, for his electoral campaign in order to remain alone in the race!
The Comité pour le respect des libertés et des droits de l'homme en Tunisie (CRLDHT), while calling on the Tunisian authorities to stop harassing candidates and their supporters, and to release citizens arrested for collecting sponsorships, calls on candidate Kais Saied to stop using the state apparatus to impose a second mandate on the people, in view of the profound economic, political and social degradation the country suffered during his first presidential term.
The CRLDHT also holds the supposedly independent Electoral Authority responsible for its lack of impartiality, its alignment with the conditions of power, and the obvious partiality of its president, who is trying to turn the presidential elections into a simple pledge of allegiance.
The CRLDHT is calling on the administrative court to speed up its examination of appeals lodged by political prisoners who have been denied the right to stand for election on spurious pretexts.
Finally, it calls on the Tunisian people and their driving forces, including parties, organizations and elites, to protest peacefully, to sponsor without fear the candidates of their choice, and to exert continuous pressure to ensure that their will is not confiscated and that they regain their right to choose their next president through free, democratic and transparent elections.
