Tunisia: Presidential candidate's team arrested amid crackdown on opponents

In Tunisia, a candidate in the presidential election reported the arrest of his team a few hours before candidacies' submissions opened amid an ongoing crackdown on President Kais Saied's opponents.

"Volunteers collecting nomination endorsements on my behalf were harassed, and the forms they had were confiscated by security officers," wrote Tunisian journalist Nacheet Azouz on Facebook on Sunday 28 July.

"They were detained and then released at four o'clock in the morning," he added in the post. He did not articulate further on the reasons behind the arrest.

Azouz has called on the Tunisian Independent Authority for Elections (ISIE) to investigate the matter. ISIE has yet to address the alleged incident.

On July 20, Nacheet Azzouz, a Tunisian entrepreneur and frequent presenter on local radio and television, announced on Facebook his intention to run for the upcoming presidential elections, scheduled for 6 October.

Nacheet Azzouz is one of approximately 80 candidates who have obtained the candidacy forms from the ISIE.

Candidates must obtain the signatures of ten members of parliament or ten representatives from the House of Regions and Districts. They can also be endorsed by 40 local council presidents or 10,000 citizens.

After he announced his candidacy, the local media outlet Kapitalis published an article stating Nacheet's colleagues' shock and concern for him, amid a wave of arrests targeting potential candidates.

"What got into him? (...) He may believe he can do better than all the presidents who have led the country in the past 70 years. In any case, it will be difficult for him to do worse," wrote the Tunisian media.

Two months ahead of the race, President Saied's strongest opponents are in jail, facing trial, or disqualified under new candidacy rules.

The opposition argues that Saied has orchestrated a plan to sabotage his opponents either through unfair trials or by implementing new, slow, and complicated bureaucratic candidacy rules.

Meanwhile, the electoral commission insists that the strict rules are meant to ensure the transparency and integrity of the process.

Saied took office following free elections in 2019 but seized additional powers in July 2021 when he shut down the elected parliament and moved to rule by decree.

Since then, he has extended his grip on the country, including assuming authority over the judiciary in June 2022 and clamping down on criticism and opposition. By February 2023, several political figures, activists, and media personalities critical of his regime had been arrested for "plotting against state security."

The 66-year-old populist leader, once widely admired in the North African state, is set to take on a one-man election this October as most opposition parties have decided to boycott the election.

"There is no competitive environment and no indications of free elections; instead, power is in the hands of one person," Wissam Saghir, spokesperson for the opposition Republican party, told The New Arab.