Tunisia’s President Kais Saied won a landslide reelection victory in results announced Monday after a campaign season that saw his opponents jailed alongside journalists, activists and attorneys.
The North African country’s Independent High Authority for Elections, known as ISIE, said Monday evening that Saied had won 90.7% of the vote.
Saied's closest challenger, businessman Ayachi Zammel, won 7.4% of the vote after sitting behind for the majority of campaign season facing multiple prison sentences for election-related crimes.
University of Tunis law professor Sghayer Zakraoui said the results were reminiscent of Tunisia under President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who ruled the country for more than 20 years before becoming the first dictator toppled in the Arab Spring uprisings. Saied received a larger vote share than Ben Ali did in 2009, two years before fleeing the country amid protests.
“We’re heading for totalitarian, even dictatorial power," Zakraoui told The Associated Press.
Election officials reported 28.8% voter turnout — a significantly smaller showing than the first round of the country's two other post-Arab Spring elections and an indication of apathy plaguing the country's 9.7 million eligible voters.
The turnout and Saied's margin of victory reflected how his supporters participated in Sunday’s race while the majority of his detractors chose to boycott. Fewer Tunisians voted for Saied in this year's race than in the second round of his first election.
“He will re-enter office undermined rather than empowered by these elections,” Tarek Megerisi, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on X.
