President Kais Saied’s apparent landslide re-election is the latest sign that authoritarianism has returned to the birthplace of the Arab Spring.
In Tunisia’s first presidential election since its authoritarian leader began dismantling the democracy Tunisians built after their 2011 Arab Spring revolution, the apparent winner came as little surprise: the incumbent himself.
President Kais Saied, first elected in 2019, easily won re-election on Sunday, according to exit polls broadcast on state television.
The government had disqualified most of his would-be challengers and arrested his main rival on electoral fraud charges that rights groups said were trumped up. The resulting race recalled the days of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the dictator who ruled Tunisia from 1987 until his overthrow in 2011, rather than the competitive elections of the years in between, when Tunisia was working to develop a full-fledged democracy.
Mr. Saied captured more than 89 percent of the vote over Ayachi Zammel, the imprisoned candidate, and Zouhair Maghzaoui, a leftist who had previously supported Mr. Saied before running to replace him, according to exit polls.
But turnout was roughly half what it was in the last presidential election, according to figures released by the government commission that oversees elections — the latest sign that the country’s multiplying crises have damaged Tunisians’ faith in a president many once idolized, even though they see no real alternative to him among the country’s weak and fractious political opposition.
