Nageh al-zaghdoudi-Kairouan
In the rural village of Zaghdoud, surrounded by pine and coronal mountains in the central province of Kairouan, the debate over candidates for the Tunisian presidential election scheduled for Sunday rages among parents who are disputing their primacy in taking advantage of the mountain waters that they still bring home on donkeys as their grandparents did.
The silence of the surrendered village is unusually interrupted, with successive visits by representatives of the candidates who are courting the goodness of those who remain in the village that expelled their sons.
As competition for voters intensified, promises of money rose, according to Cheb Fadi (a pseudonym) in a statement to Al Jazeera Net. He offered his services to a party in exchange for votes for his presidential candidate, but competition among the mediators was intense, defeating an older mediator.
"I will not vote for them, but I wanted to take money from these parties to help needy families," Fadi said. "Between 20 dinars ($ 7) and 50 dinars ($ 17), there are promises that the family will be able to exploit forests and operate forest rangers and schools." ".
Zghodd's rural harsh terrain with rough terrain has a population of about 5,000 inhabitants living on livestock and forest products. It has a high incidence of poverty, illiteracy, early dropout and the migration of young people to cities due to deprivation.
Like the Zaghdoud region, rural Kairouan is a fertile space for buying votes.Poor families are being used to help in the face of growing poverty, low purchasing power and declining state intervention.They are willing to sell their possessions, according to some residents surveyed by Al Jazeera Net.
As school returns approached on June 17, the government has allocated aid in the form of school kits for families in poor rural areas, which have been distributed to local administrations, but beneficiaries have been required to vote for a candidate, according to some families.
This bargain took place in the rural area of Kfar Hfouz, according to a documented certificate that Al Jazeera Net keeps a copy of.
The electoral law prohibits employees from using public capabilities for partisan employment and electoral propaganda. A member of the Independent High Electoral Commission of Tunisia, Mohamed Tlili Mansri, reported that as of September 12, 2019, 1,000 irregularities had been identified, most notably the neutrality of the administration and the exploitation of public spaces for propaganda.
Persuasive philanthropy
At the start of the presidential election campaign, citizens and observers warned against "buying the votes" with money and aid supervised by charitable or developmental organizations, most of which receive foreign funding.
In-kind assistance to the poor varied, most importantly Qaffa, a basket with medium-sized ears containing food products such as cereals, sugar, oil, tomato cans, or cardboard boxes with the same ingredients, ranging from 30 dinars ($ 10) to 60 dinars ($ 20). .
Such practices have been criticized for what has been described as humiliating the poor by portraying receiving aid to market charity.
"Be a donkey at least"
The criticism of buying votes on social media has been ridiculous to those who "sell and buy". Citizens were urged not to accept the money in exchange for voting, considering that those who sell their votes for 30 dinars ($ 10) are inferior to the donkey, which is sold for 600 dinars ($ 200).
Despite censorship
The organization "I am awake" in its report on the election campaign that 13% of the irregularities detected are violations "buy votes." According to a member of the organization, Yusra Moghaddam, her observers "monitored with the naked eye the purchase of votes."
She added, `` Our observers have seen the processes of buying votes and we have not been able to document them. '' The purchase of votes consists in distributing money and distributing gifts to voters, explaining that recruiting volunteers to campaign for money in accordance with agreed controls in terms of value and billing is legal.
Candidates must calculate these expenses in kind contributions, and recruit a volunteer between 15 dinars ($ 5) and 45 dinars ($ 15), stressing the need to include these expenses within the financial ceiling of the campaign.
Penalty for buying votes
Since August, the Election Commission, according to its president, Nabil Pavon, has developed a strategy to combat the purchase of votes, including cooperation between the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank, the Anti-Corruption Commission and the Independent Authority for Audiovisual Communication, to monitor all funding routes.
Pavon explained that the Commission has the competence and authority to assign penalties and refer files to the prosecution to track offenders if it is proven that they used excessive funds in the presidential elections.
Pavon said the law provides for penalties that could amount to imprisonment for violating campaign finance procedures, adding that buying votes is punishable by imprisonment.
He also told Al-Jazeera Net that the Commission has used 1200 jurors to monitor the election campaign and 350 local coordinators and 4,000 heads of polling stations, in addition to the cooperation with local and international observers.