On October 6, 2024, Tunisians will vote in a presidential election. Incumbent president Kaïs Saïed, who took office in 2019 and assumed extraordinary powers in July 2021, has announced his candidacy for reelection. In August 2024, Tunisia’s electoral commission reported that two other contenders had been preliminarily accepted to the race: Zouhair Maghzaoui, who is widely regarded as having close ties to Saïed, and Ayachi Zammel, head of the little-known Azimoun party. International observers are barred from monitoring the election. Opposition leaders and their supporters have called for a boycott, citing the numerous arrests of opposition figures, new candidacy restrictions, and Saïed’s concentration of power in the presidency. Boycotts occurred for similar reasons during the December 2022 parliamentary elections, which featured voter turnout of just over 11 percent, compared with 41 percent in the 2019 elections.

This assessment was last updated on September 10, 2024.

The election is taking place amid democratic decline, particularly in the aftermath of President Saïed’s seizure of extraordinary powers in July 2021. Since then, Saïed has dismissed the democratically elected parliament of 2019, replaced the prime minister several times, and held a flawed constitutional referendum in 2022. That 2022 constitution, which was drafted without transparency or consultation with civil society, shifted power from the parliament to the executive, hindered the autonomy of the Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE), and sharply reduced judicial independence. In addition, a 2022 electoral law imposed new requirements on candidates, eliminated public funding for campaigns, and revoked earlier laws designed to promote gender parity and youth representation. The new law also disqualified those with a legal violation from running in an election, effectively excluding many opposition figures due to the government’s campaign of arbitrary arrests, detentions, and judicial harassment. For example, a July 2024 court ruling barred aspiring presidential candidate Abdel Latif Mekki from appearing in the media or traveling around the country, obstructing his ability to campaign. The following month, he was banned from running for office after being charged with vote buying in the 2019 presidential election.

Scores of opposition politicians have been arrested ahead of the election under problematic laws, contributing to a rise in self-censorship. Zammel, one of the three accepted presidential candidates, was arrested in September 2024 for allegedly falsifying endorsements. Rached Ghannouchi, a former parliament speaker and the leader of Ennahda, a prominent opposition party, has been in jail since April 2023 on charges of incitement and allegedly receiving foreign contributions. Several members of Ennahda, including Ghannouchi’s son-in-law, have also been arrested. Other potential candidates, like Abir Moussi, have been barred from running due to Decree 54, a draconian cybercrime law issued by Saïed in 2022. Moussi, the leader of the Free Destourian Party (PDL), was sentenced to two years in prison under Decree 54 for her criticism of the ISIE. Moussi’s team had submitted her candidacy application just days before her arrest.

Tunisia has a score of 51 out of 100 on Freedom House’s Election Vulnerability Index, with 100 representing the strongest defenses against digital election interference. The index is based on a selection of key electoral indicators. Tunisia’s score reflects an increasingly authoritarian state under President Saïed, high rates of arrests that have left little to no political pluralism, and a repressive media environment.

Freedom House has identified the following as key digital interference issues to watch ahead of election day:

• Arrests and prosecutions: Ahead of the election, members of the media, lawyers, and ordinary social media users have been arrested, often under Decree 54, for their criticism of the government. Journalist Mourad Zghidi was arrested and sentenced to a year in prison after expressing solidarity with another imprisoned journalist in social media posts. An elementary school guard was sentenced to eight months in prison for posting a video on Facebook that contained satirical caricatures criticizing the president, and a blogger was sentenced to six months in prison for criticizing Saïed online, under the offense of “committing an atrocious act against the president.” The rise in arrests encourages self-censorship and limits voters’ ability to access accurate information, independent reporting, and open political discussion.
• Online harassment: President Saïed often defames his opponents in speeches, accusing them of being unpatriotic, foreign agents, or traitors. His supporters then amplify his words online, harassing and doxing the opposition member or critic Saïed has chosen to target. In May 2024, Saïed continued to spread racist rhetoric and claims of a “foreign-backed conspiracy to increase migration,” which has led to significant online and offline harassment of migrants and refugees, as well as Black Tunisians. Similarly, Saïed’s accusations that civil society organizations are attempting to interfere with Tunisia’s internal affairs have contributed to increasing online harassment of civic activists. In May 2024, Saadia Mosbah, head of the antiracism organization Mnemty, was subjected to a defamation campaign by progovernment social media accounts and was later arrested.
• Online content removal: Government authorities and various other entities sometimes seek the removal of online content, a practice that could escalate ahead of the election. In early 2024, after publishing an opinion piece on politicized arrests, the independent news site Nawaat received a notice from the ISIE claiming that the article violated the rules of the electoral campaign, even though its topic was not related to any election. Already ahead of the October balloting, the ISIE has imposed rules for election coverage, stating that media outlets, including online outlets, must provide the authority with detailed reporting plans in advance of the electoral campaigns, a requirement that local media organizations have denounced as interference. Independent journalists have also been asked to remove their online articles.

Tunisia is rated Partly Free in Freedom in the World 2024, with a score of 51 out of 100 with respect to its political rights and civil liberties, and Partly Free in Freedom on the Net 2023, with an internet freedom score of 59 out of 100. To learn more, please visit the Tunisia country reports for Freedom in the World and Freedom on the Net and Freedom House’s Tunisia country portal.