Tunisia.. Kais Saied wins a new presidential term with 90 percent

The Tunisian Electoral Commission announced on Monday that President Kais Saied had won a new presidential term after winning 90.69 percent of the votes, while candidate Ayachi Zemal called for a comprehensive political calm.

During a press conference in the capital, the head of the authority, Farouk Bouasker, announced that Saied had come in first place in the preliminary results of the presidential elections, with a large margin over his competitors, Ayachi Zemal (7.35 percent) and Zouhair Maghzaoui (1.97 percent).

Bouaskar confirmed that "the council of the authority unanimously approved the victory of candidate Kais Saied (66 years old) with the majority of voters' votes, and his victory in the first round of the presidential elections."

Saied previously won the 2019 presidential election, in the second round, with nearly 73 percent of the vote.

No official comment has been issued yet by candidate Zuhair Al-Maghzawi on the results announced by the Election Commission.

On Sunday, Al-Maghzawi questioned the results of an opinion poll published by the Sigma Conseil Foundation, which spoke of Saied’s victory with 89 percent, and called on the electoral commission and the security and military institutions to protect the electoral process. He also called on President Saied to “respect the minds of Tunisians.”

Meanwhile, the campaign of candidate Ayachi Zemal issued a statement expressing its thanks to Tunisians for their participation in the voting process, “which confirms their ambition to build a democratic state in which the principles of peaceful transfer of power, freedom, and human rights are entrenched.”

She also expressed her concern about the reluctance of more than 70 percent of Tunisian voters, especially young people, to participate in the electoral process, and called on “everyone (authority, opposition, and civil society) to pay attention to this issue, give it the utmost importance, and address it in a way that allows for the building of a stable political life.”

The campaign also expressed its rejection of “exploiting the electoral process and the conflicts and other things that surrounded it to undermine national sovereignty or cast doubt on the popular will,” stressing that it distances itself from “all calls for chaos and distortion, rejects malicious campaigns, and affirms that political affairs, including elections, are a purely Tunisian issue in which there is no room for any foreign interference.”

It also called on both President Saied and the opposition to “give priority to the supreme national interest and enter into a comprehensive political calm, in which the supreme interests of the country prevail and begin with the release of all prisoners on the basis of their political, media, economic or artistic activities, in order to provide the conditions for a political, economic and social climate that encourages facing economic and social challenges, and engaging in building a state of citizenship, freedoms, economic prosperity and well-being.”

The campaign also called on all democratic and civil forces and professional organizations to express their solidarity with candidate Ayachi Zemal, announcing the launch of a “national campaign to demand his release along with the detained volunteers in his election campaign.”

(Agencies)