Presidential election in Tunisia 2014
The first round of the 2014 presidential election in Tunisia took place on November 23, 2014. This first democratic presidential election after the overthrow of the autocratic President Ben Ali by the revolution in Tunisia in 2010/2011 was prepared and set by the 2011 constituent assembly elected . The second round took place on December 21, 2014 as a runoff between the two candidates with the greatest approval in the first ballot, Beji Caid Essebsi and Moncef Marzouki . Essebsi won this with 55.68 percent of the vote and was sworn in as President of Tunisia on December 31, 2014.
Starting position
From 1994 onwards, Tunisia was formally a representative democracy . However, all elections were sham elections , which - neither free nor fair - produced results of sometimes over 90 percent of the votes for Ben Ali and his party Rassemblement constitutionnel démocratique . Finally, the president was in 2009 confirmed for another five years, so the next regular election to be held, 2014.
At the turn of the year 2010/2011, however, Ben Ali's autocratic regime was overthrown by the Tunisian revolution; the office of the president became vacant with his flight on January 15, 2011 and was filled on an interim basis until a regular election. Initially, the plan was to hold a presidential election a few months later. However, since the constitution was suspended in the course of the revolution, the conditions for holding any kind of elections were lacking. The interim president Fouad Mebazaâ , appointed on January 16, announced on March 3 that a constituent assembly would be convened, which, after a delay, was elected on October 23, 2011 and which would draw up a constitution within a year as well as the presidential and parliamentary elections should organize. There were repeated delays due to economic difficulties and political turmoil, which came to a head in the first half of 2013 with the murder of the left opposition politicians Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi . The elections, scheduled for June 23, 2013, were postponed to December 17 and then to 2014 after protests against the government, when Ali Larajedh's government opened the way to a technocratic government in late 2013 due to public pressure and the new one Constitution of the Republic of Tunisia passed by the Constituent Assembly on January 27, 2014. Under the new Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaâ , the presidential election was scheduled for November 23, 2014.
Suffrage and position of the president
According to Article 75 of the 2014 Constitution, the President of the Republic of Tunisia is elected directly by the people in general, secret, free and equal elections for a term of five years and can be re-elected once. If he does not achieve an absolute majority in the first ballot , a runoff election between the two strongest votes will be held within two weeks of the final determination of the election result. According to Art. 74, all Tunisian citizens of the Islamic faith who are at least 35 years old and who are supported by some elected representatives have the right to vote. According to Art. 71, the President and the Government form the executive branch of the Republic of Tunisia. According to Art. 72–88 competencies that go beyond the functions of state representative, law notary and emergency manager. He determines the guidelines for foreign, defense and security policy vis-à-vis the government (Art. 77), intervenes in the legislative process (Art. 81) and may dissolve Parliament, but if he tries to do so the second time he also loses his office (Art. 99).
Candidates
A total of 70 people submitted their candidacy to the electoral authority; 27 of them were allowed to vote. The Islamic- leaning Ennahda party , the leading force in the 2011–2014 Constituent Assembly , announced on September 7, 2014 that it would not be running a candidate. This dispels the accusation that the party is striving for total power accumulation like the pre-revolutionary Tunisian leadership before. Instead, she shows that she is serious about her will for broad cross-party cooperation, and campaigned for candidates with the greatest possible consensus. The Jordanian expert Marwan al-Muasher suspected that the Ennahda was retreating into the background for the time being in view of the country's unresolved problems. In addition, Ennahda's withdrawal fit in with his own vision of a political system that should give parliament the strongest possible position and the president the weakest possible position: "a nominally independent president by Ennahdha's favor would be a great political bargaining chip."
The 88-year-old leader of the secular party Nidaa Tounes (“Call of Tunisia”), founded in 2012 , Beji Caid Essebsi , took up positions in political leadership with many years of experience. His party won the Tunisian parliamentary elections held a month before the presidential election; he himself was considered a favorite for the presidential election.
Among the promising applicants was the previous interim president of Tunisia, Moncef Marzouki , who was elected president of the country by the constituent assembly at the end of 2011, for a limited period like the assembly for one year. Due to the delays in the work of the body, the presidential election was a long time coming, and Marzouki stayed in office until the 2014 election, albeit without formal confirmation. The human rights activist is politically left-wing and founded the Congress for the Republic party, which was banned under Ben Ali in 2001 . Even if the Islamic Ennahda party did not officially endorse a candidate, many of its supporters and members supported Marzouki; the Ennahda Prime Minister of 2012/13, Hamadi Jebali , even resigned from his party in protest against the lack of official support for Marzouki.
The President of the Constituent Assembly, Mustafa Ben Jaafar , also announced his candidacy.
Election campaign
The election campaign that began immediately after the parliamentary elections on October 30, 2014 was described in the media as "dirty" and was marked by mutual accusations. This polarization between two camps was alien to the unideologized political culture of Tunisia. Mustafa Ben Jafaar accused Essebsi, the favorite and winner of the parliamentary elections, of striving for the hegemonicism of a one-party government (“taghawel”). The interim president Morcef Marzouki accused Essebsi that with his election the old regime would return to power and thus reverse the revolution. Marzouki's statement that Essebsi could only prevail through electoral fraud led to a reprimand by the state election commission. Essebsi, on the other hand, accused his opponent Marzouki of allowing himself to be supported by the Islamists, especially since they had ruined the country after the revolution, and turned down a televised duel because Marzouki was an extremist. While the former Ennahda prime minister Jabali also warned against a return of one-party rule by Essebsi, the leader of the Islamic party, Rached al-Ghannouchi , appeased his supporters that a return of the old regime was not to be feared, which is interpreted as a gesture in the direction of Essebsis has been that the offer to cooperate continues.
Essebsi stylized himself as the second Bourguiba , imitating the appearance of the Tunisian founding father right down to the choice of sunglasses, the accent in speeches and the way of walking. He was supported by many media outlets; the head of the private television station Nessma TV , Nabil Karoui, accompanied Essebsi to election campaign events. As he placed the restoration of the reputation of the state and the fight against terrorism at the center of his election campaign alongside economic issues, concerns grew among some Ennahda supporters that Essebsi could lead the country back onto an authoritarian course and that the media would be similarly docile towards him prove how to the overthrown autocrat Ben Ali.
Shortly before the second ballot, Islamists published videos threatening terrorist attacks on the political class. In the three days before the election, the Tunisian authorities hermetically sealed off the border with its eastern neighbor, Libya, in order to shield their own country from the chaotic security situation there and not to endanger the election as a provisional conclusion to democratization, especially since the authorities are campaigning against Islamists Groups in the western border area with Algeria were busy. Around 100,000 security guards checked that the election was largely carried out properly.
Results
In the first round of the election on November 23, 2014, none of the candidates achieved the required majority of over 50 percent of the votes, which is why there was a second ballot on December 21, 2014. On November 23, around 63 percent of registered voters (around 5.3 million in total) took part after around 70 percent of those registered in the parliamentary election a few weeks earlier. In the first ballot, Nidaa-Tounes boss Beji Caid Essebsi (a good 39 percent of the vote) and the previous interim president Moncef Marzouki (a good 33 percent) prevailed by a clear margin over the other candidates and therefore competed against each other in the second round .
In the runoff election on December 21, Essebsi won, according to the preliminary results of the electoral commission, with 55.68 percent, ahead of Marzouki with 44.32 percent of the vote. The turnout was around 62 percent of registered voters.
Reactions
Shortly after the polls closed and after the first predictions that Essebsi saw ahead, he stepped in front of his supporters and declared himself the winner. His opponent Marzouki contradicted this and warned to wait for the official election result. In the southern Tunisian city of El Hamma , after the first results were announced, riots broke out because 300 to 400 supporters of the defeated candidate threw stones at a police station. As a result, the security forces in the region were strengthened.
Essebsi said on the Monday evening after the election that he was in favor of coming to a complete end with the past and looking to the future. He called on the citizens to cohesion and the defeated Marzouki to work together, who in turn called on his supporters to calm down and accept the election results. At the same time, however, he called for the founding of a “citizens' movement”, which should prevent the threatened return of the dictatorship at this “crossroads”.
Similar to the parliamentary election in October 2014, which was largely received positively worldwide, international politicians and observers praised the good preparation and implementation of the presidential election; Tunisia has set standards for transitions to democracy, even if the falling voter turnout is a particular cause for concern among young people. Politicians like Barack Obama congratulated Essebsi on his election victory and offered to cooperate, while French President Hollande praised the Tunisians' determination, responsibility and willingness to compromise. The authoritarian presidents of Algeria and Egypt also congratulated; the first praised the “maturity” of Tunisian voters, the second said that the result confirmed the trust that Essebsi enjoyed.
Web links
- Naveena Kottoor: Tunisia: 4000 election observers are monitoring the presidential election. Background report. In: Boell.de , December 19, 2014.
Individual evidence
- ↑ euronews.net accessed on January 23, 2011.
- ↑ Tunisia Swears in Interim Leader. In: Al Jazeera , January 16, 2011.
- ^ Tunisia plans to elect a constitutional council. In: Deutsche Welle , March 4, 2011.
- ↑ Hannah Magin: The Holy and the State. In: Jungle World , February 6, 2014; Sarah Mersch: Dossier Internal Conflicts: Tunisia. In: Federal Agency for Civic Education , April 16, 2014.
- ↑ The election date is: June 2013. In: Die Welt , accessed on October 17, 2012.
- ↑ http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/tunesien-krawalle106.html ( Memento from August 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Parliament votes for a new constitution. ( Memento from January 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Tagesschau.de , January 26, 2014.
- ↑ Tunisie: Les législatives fixées on 26 octobre et la présidentielle on 23 novembre. In: Jeune Afrique , June 25, 2014.
- ^ A b Jürgen Theres: Adoption of the constitution of the 2nd Tunisian republic. Political background report. In: HSS.de , January 27, 2014; Hannah Magin: The Holy and the State. In: Jungle World , February 6, 2014.
- ↑ a b 27 candidates admitted to the Tunisian presidential election. ( Memento from October 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: stol.it , September 30, 2014.
- ^ Tarek Amara: Tunisia's Main Islamist Party to Stay Out of Presidential Election. In: Reuters .com , September 7, 2014.
- ^ Marwan al-Muasher , Katie Bentivoglio: Tunisian Parliamentary Elections: Lessons for the Arab World. In: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (website), October 28, 2014.
- ^ Thomas Claes, Richard Probst: Tunisia after the parliamentary elections. On the way to a new republic? In: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung , November 2014, ISBN 978-3-95861-016-3 , p. 5.
- ↑ Marouen Achouri: Présidentielle: La guerre des clans a commencé! In: BusinessNews.com.tn , September 16, 2014.
- ^ Elections in Tunisia: Commission declares secular party the winner. In: FAZ.net , October 30, 2014.
- ^ Leftist Marzouki to Run for Tunisian Presidency. In: Al-Ahram , January 17, 2011.
- ↑ a b c Eileen Byrne: Major Political Shift to Come as Tunisia Votes for New President. In: The National , December 20, 2014.
- ↑ Essebsi Wins Tunisian Presidential Elections With 55.68 Percent of Votes. In: Al-Akhbar , December 22, 2014.
- ↑ Lara Talverdian: Tunisia's New Beginning. In: Atlantic Council , December 23, 2014.
- ↑ Ben Jaafar-Caïd Essebsi: pourquoi tant de haine? In: Leaders.com.tn , December 2, 2014.
- ↑ Louis Bonhoure: Runoff Campaign Week One. Resignations and Accusations. ( Memento of December 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Tunisia-Live.com , December 15, 2014.
- ^ A b Tunisians Fear the Return of the Ben Ali Era After Essebsi's Victory. In: Al-Akhbar , December 26, 2014.
- ↑ Karem Yehia: How Nidaa Tounes Beat Ennahda in Tunisia's Polls. In: Al-Ahram , October 28, 2014.
- ↑ a b c Essebsi Wins Tunisia Presidential Election. In: Gulf-Times.com , December 23, 2014.
- ↑ Eileen Byrne, Chris Stephen: Year in Review 2014: Tunisia and Libya, a Tale of Two Uprisings. In: The National , December 21, 2014.
- ^ Christoph Ehrhardt: Tunisia's new president. With an outstretched hand. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , December 22, 2014.
- ↑ a b Preliminary result on the website of the Election Commission (Arabic).
- ^ En Tunisie, l'élection presidential s'achemine vers un second tour. In: Le Monde , 23 November 2014.
- ↑ Les Résultats Préliminaires du Deuxième Tour de la Présidentielle. In: ISIE.tn (Electoral Commission), December 22, 2014; Safa Ben Said: Live Blog: Second Round Presidential Elections. ( Memento of December 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Tunisia-live.com , December 21, 2014, updated December 22, 2014.
- ^ A b Riccardo Mariani: International Observers: Landmark Election Despite Low Youth Turnout. ( Memento from December 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Tunisia-Live.com , December 23, 2014.
- ↑ Official report on the parliamentary and presidential elections 2014 ISIE Electoral Commission , PDF file (Arabic)
- ^ Zeyneb Marzouk: Protests in El Hamma, Gabes as Results Announced on Election Day. ( Memento of December 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Tunisia-Live.com , December 22, 2014.
- ↑ a b Newly Elected Leader Says Tunisia Has 'Turned Page'. In: Al Ahram , December 23, 2014.
- ^ Statement by the Press Secretary on the Presidential Election in Tunisia. In: Whitehouse.gov , December 22, 2014.
