• Presidential Tunisia, the conservative Saied triumphs
  • Tunisia voted to choose the president between Saied and Karoui
  • Tunisia, Karoui presidential candidate released from prison
  • The former president of Tunisia Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali died in Saudi Arabia
  • Tunisia presidential elections, first results: Said ahead of Karoui
  • Presidential elections in Tunisia, sharp decline in turnout

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October 14, 2019Sopnominato 'Robocop' because it moves in a rigid and somewhat mechanical way, Kais Saied, the ultra-conservative jurist who presents himself as an independent and anti-systemic candidate, became the third president elected in Tunis after the triumph of the revolution in 2011 of the Jasmines who had unseated the dictatorship of Zinedine el-Abidine Ben Ali.

After the surprising victory in the first round with 18.7 percent of the votes, he won the victory with more than 75% of the votes, before the populist television magnate, Nabil Karoui, and having obtained the support of various gods its rivals in the first round, including the candidate of Ennahda, the conservative Islamist-led religious party that won the 2018 municipal elections and 'repeated' with the legislation of last Sunday. The prime minister, Youssef al-Shahed, had also sided with him, for a vote, he had said, against corruption, a veiled allusion to Karoui, set free last Wednesday after a month and a half in preventive prison, because he was accused of tax evasion and money laundering.

It cannot be said that he is a prograssist, Saied. "He turns the page", he said after the victory, suggesting a presidential path marked by nationalism and aversion towards Western values: he wants to restore the death penalty, the subject of a moratorium after the triumph of the revolution; considers homosexuality an alien custom by Tunisian society, introduced from abroad to destabilize it and is also doubtful about gender equality, which wants to equate rights between men and women as opposed to Sharia.

An economic protectionist, he believes that the main reform that the country needs is decentralization, a reform that it cannot implement because it is not the responsibility of the presidency - and has just developed other proposals to revive an economy that suffers from the same problems times of dictatorship: corruption and high unemployment that perpetuate inequality, limit the possibilities for personal development and push migratory flows.