Presidential election in Tunisia 2019

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The 2019 presidential election in Tunisia took place on September 15 and October 13. The lawyer Kais Saied and the media entrepreneur Nabil Karoui received the most votes in the first ballot and thus reached the second ballot. According to the preliminary final result, Saïed won there with almost 73% of the vote.

prehistory

The presidential election in 2014 was the first free presidential election in Tunisia after the overthrow of the government Ben Ali in the Arab Spring 2011. On 21 December 2014 the then 87-year-old won Beji Caid Essebsi of the party nidaa tounes the runoff for the presidency.

The 2019 election was originally scheduled for November, but Essebsi died on July 25, 2019, around five months before his term in office expired. The President of the People's Representative Assembly , Mohamed Ennaceur , took over the office on a provisional basis, but according to the constitution was only allowed to rule for 90 days.

The election of the People's Representative Assembly took place on October 6, 2019.

Electoral process

Every voter has one vote. If no candidate wins an absolute majority in the first ballot , there is a runoff election of the two candidates who received the most votes in the first ballot. A candidate must be at least 35 years old on the day of candidacy. He must be a Muslim and a Tunisian citizen. According to a law passed by the People's Representatives' Assembly on June 18, 2019, he may not have received support from abroad in the year before the election, have no criminal record and may not lead a charity.

Voters had to register before the election. Their number was over seven million.

Candidates

26 candidates, including seven independents and 19 candidates from different parties, were approved by the election commission. 71 applicants were refused entry, among them the homosexual Mounir Baatour, who would have been the first openly gay presidential candidate in a Muslim country.

Among them was Kais Saied (* 1958), who started as an independent. He is a professor of constitutional law and is considered ultra-conservative, for example on issues of homosexuality and the death penalty .

The businessman Nabil Karoui (* 1963) leads the Qalb Tunis party, which was founded in 2019 . He runs the company Karoui & Karoui World , which also owns the television station Nessma TV . He also runs a charity. Karoui has been investigated for money laundering and tax evasion since 2016 . He was charged on July 8, 2019; from August 23, 2019, he was in custody.

Other candidates were Abdelfattah Mourou (* 1948, Ennahda ) and Abdelkrim Zbidi (also Abdelkarim Zbidi, * 1950, independent, supported by Nidaa Tounes).

With Youssef Chahed , the incumbent Prime Minister also took office. Selma Elloumi Rekik and Abir Moussi were the only women among the candidates.

Result of the first ballot

According to preliminary results, Kais Saied received 620,711 votes and thus 18.4% of the votes, Nabil Karoui 525,517 votes and 15.6%. It was followed by Abdelfattah Mourou with 12.9% and Abdelkrim Zbidi with 10.7%. Youssef Chahed received the fifth most votes. The turnout was around 45%.

The result has been described by commentators as a "victory for two outsiders".

Nabil Karoui was denied his release from prison by the judicial authorities several weeks after the first ballot; he was released from custody only a few days before the runoff election.

Runoff

The date of the runoff election was initially unclear, as there could have been objections from unsuccessful candidates to the preliminary result of the first round. The electoral commission set it to October 13, 2019 at the end of September.

Saied received 2,777,931 votes and thus 72.71% in the runoff election, Karoui 1,042,894 votes and 27.29%. The turnout was 56.8% and was thus higher than in the first ballot.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-14/tunisians-seeking-change-get-an-unlikely-president-robot-man
  2. ↑ Nessim Ben Gharbia: Tunisie: après le président du décès Beji Caid Essebsi, le calendrier électoral perturbé? In: Jeune Afrique , July 25, 2019; Interim president Ennaceur sworn in as Tunisia plans Essebsi funeral. In: Africa Times , July 25, 2019, both accessed September 19, 2019
  3. ↑ Tunisie: recours contre une modification du code électoral (fr) . In: L'Orient-Le Jour , June 25, 2019. Retrieved September 19, 2019. 
  4. ↑ Openly gay Tunisian presidential candidate fails to qualify. raseef22.com from August 20, 2019, accessed on September 20, 2019
  5. ↑ Martin Gehlen: Tunisia during the election campaign: “Robocop” is for the death penalty and against homosexuality. fr.de from September 18, 2019
  6. ^ Tunisie: Les cadres de Nidaa Tounes reiterent leur soutien au candidat Abdelkarim Zbidi. tunisienumerique.com of September 1, 2019 (French), accessed on September 20, 2019
  7. ^ Elections presidential. tap.info.tn (French), accessed on September 20, 2019
  8. ↑ Turnout drops - Little interest in presidential elections in Tunisia. stern.de from September 16, 2019
  9. ↑ a b egn / sti: Professor against media mogul in presidential run-off election in Tunisia. dw.com from September 17, 2019
  10. ^ En Tunisie, la justice décide que Nabil Karoui reste en prison. monde.fr of September 18, 2019 (French), accessed on September 20, 2019
  11. ^ Tunisia: Presidential candidate Nabil Karoui released from prison. Spiegel Online from October 9, 2019, accessed on October 10, 2019
  12. ↑ Tunisia: run-off election for president on October 13, 2019. maghreb-post.de of September 30, 2019, accessed on October 1, 2019
  13. ^ Tunisians seeking change get an unlikely president. bloomberg.com of October 15, 2019 (English), accessed on October 16, 2019