President’s rivals arrested or called to court in pre-election crackdown

As elections approach in Tunisia, potential candidates are facing arrest or being summoned to appear in court as authorities clamp down on those planning to challenge President Kais Saied.

On Friday, a judge in a Tunis court put a potential presidential candidate under a gag order and restricted his movements.

Abdellatif Mekki, who served as Tunisia’s health minister and was a prominent leader of the Islamist movement Ennahda before founding his own political party, is among a group of former politicians being investigated for the 2014 killing of a prominent physician.

His political party, Work and Accomplishment, has decried the timing of the murder charges as politically motivated due to his plans to run against Saied in Tunisia’s October election.

“We strongly condemn these arbitrary measures, considering them political targeting of a serious candidate in the presidential elections,” it said in a statement on Friday.

Mr Mekki is the latest potential candidate to face legal obstacles before campaigning even gets underway in the 12 million population North African nation.

The challenges facing opposition candidates are a far cry from the democratic hopes felt throughout Tunisia a decade ago. The country emerged as one of the Arab Spring’s only success stories after deposing former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, holding peaceful, democratic elections and rewriting its constitution in 2014.

Since 2019, observers have been alarmed at growing signs of a democratic backslide. Mr Saied has imprisoned political opponents, suspended parliament and rewritten the constitution to consolidate the power of the presidency.

Despite Tunisia’s ongoing political and economic challenges, large segments of the population continue to support him and his populist rhetoric targeting corrupt elites and foreign interference into domestic affairs.

About a week before Mr Mekki, Lotfi Mraihi, a physician and veteran politician who had also announced plans to run for president, was arrested on money laundering related charges.

Mr Mraihi, the president of the nationalist Republican People’s Union party, was kept in custody after a judge issued an additional warrant adding to charges filed against him in January.

A court spokesperson in Tunis told Radio Mosaique that the arrest warrant was served “on suspicion of money laundering, transfer of assets and opening of bank accounts abroad without the Central Bank’s approval.”

Last January, the court sentenced Mr Mraihi to a suspended six-month prison term as part of an investigation into a 2019 case related to vote-buying allegations.

The Tunisian non-governmental organisation, Legal Agenda, described the arrest as a show of force.

“The arrest of the presumed candidate, Lotfi Mrahi, represents a new step by the authorities in tightening its grip on the electoral process, after announcing tailor-made conditions for candidacy, while judicial rulings ensure that the rest of the candidates in the race are besieged,” it said in a statement last week.

The arrests add Mr Mekki and Mr Mraihi to the list of Tunisian politicians pursued by the courts in Mr Saied’s Tunisia.

Amnesty International said in February that over the year prior more than 20 political critics of Mr Saied’s government had been arrested, detained or convicted on charges related to their political activity.

The pursuit of Mr Saied’s political opponents has spanned the political spectrum, from Tunisia’s lslamists like Ennahda’s 83-year-old leader, Rached Ghannouchi, and nationalists like Free Destourian Party president 49-year-old, Abir Moussi.

Mr Ghannouchi has been behind bars since May 2024, facing foreign interference charges.

Ms Moussi, a popular right-wing figure who appeals to Tunisians nostalgic for the pre-revolution era, was arrested in October 2023 while being investigated under a controversial cybercrime law. She remains imprisoned.