TUNIS: Tunisian President Kais Saied, who seized wide-ranging powers two years after his 2019 election, on Monday submitted his official candidacy for the country’s upcoming presidential election on October 6.
Saied, 66, told reporters in the capital Tunis that his candidacy was part of “a liberation and self-determination war” set to “establish a new republic.”
Experts say Saied’s challengers face significant constraints in their bid to run for office, while several would-be hopefuls are either in prison or being prosecuted.
But Saied on Monday denied that his government was repressing critical voices, saying that “whoever talks about restrictions is delusional.”
“I did not oppress anyone, and the law applies to everyone equally,” he said. “I am here as a citizen to run for office.”
“We will not accept any foreign party interfering in the choices of our people,” he added.
Saied’s submission came just two days after that of Abir Moussi, a vocal critic of Saied who has been in jail since October.
Other jailed hopefuls include Issam Chebbi, leader of centrist party Al Joumhouri, and Ghazi Chaouchi, head of the social-democratic party Democratic Current, both held for “plotting against the state.”
The two politicians are among more than 20 of Saied’s opponents detained since a flurry of arrests in February 2023.
Last week, four women working on the presidential campaign of rapper turned businessman Karim Gharbi, better known by his stage name K2Rhym, were given jail time for allegedly buying signatures of endorsement.
Three staffers on media personality Nizar Chaari’s campaign have been detained on similar suspicions, which the candidate has categorically denied.
A group of about 30 NGOs denounced on Thursday the “arbitrary detention” of candidates, an electoral authority which has “lost its independence” and “the monopolization of the public space” to bolster Saied’s re-election bid.
“We are in a war of liberation and we don’t want to restrict anyone’s freedoms,” the president said on Monday. “I did not interfere with the judiciary.”
To be listed on the ballot, candidates are required to present a list of signatures from 10,000 registered voters, with at least 500 voter signatures per constituency.
Saied said he collected over 240,000 signatures.
Tunisia president Kais Saied registers election candidacy
https://arab.news/86jy7
Tunisia president Kais Saied registers election candidacy
- President says candidacy part of ‘a liberation and self-determination war’ set to ‘establish a new republic’
- Experts say Kais Saied’s challengers face significant constraints in their bid to run for office
Algeria parliament approves amended law criminalizing French rule
- “Algeria, which sacrificed millions of martyrs for its freedom, independence and sovereignty, will never bargain away its memory or its sovereignty for any material advantage,” he told the lower house
ALGIERS: Algeria’s parliament on Monday approved an amended law criminalizing French colonial rule, removing earlier provisions that called for official apologies and broad reparations from France after Senate demanded the changes.
The law, approved by the lower house in December, had declared France’s colonization of Algeria from 1830 to 1962 a crime and demanded an apology and reparations, with Paris calling it “hostile.”
But in January the Senate said some articles of the text did not fully reflect the official approach set out by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who had said Algeria did not need financial reparations from France.
A clause seeking compensation for victims of French nuclear tests in Algeria remains unchanged.
Fawzi Bendjaballah, rapporteur of the joint committee tasked with revising the bill, said the changes reflected the “principled and unwavering position of the Algerian state.”
“Algeria, which sacrificed millions of martyrs for its freedom, independence and sovereignty, will never bargain away its memory or its sovereignty for any material advantage,” he told the lower house.
France called the bill “clearly hostile,” coming at a time of diplomatic friction between the two countries.
Relations soured in late 2024 when France officially backed Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara, where Algeria backs the pro-independence Polisario Front.
Algeria says the war with colonial France killed 1.5 million people. French historians put the death toll lower at 500,000, 400,000 of them Algerian.
The bill states that France holds “legal responsibility for its colonial past in Algeria and the tragedies it caused.”
It lists the “crimes of French colonization,” including nuclear tests, extrajudicial killings, “physical and psychological torture,” and the “systematic plundering of resources.”
However, Tebboune had said in a speech in December 2024 that Algiers was “not tempted by money, neither euros nor dollars.”
“We demand recognition of the crimes committed in the country” by France, he said. “I am not asking for financial compensation.”
Before taking office, French President Emmanuel Macron had acknowledged that his country’s colonization of Algeria was a “crime against humanity,” but Paris has yet to offer Algiers a formal apology.
