Tunisia's incumbent President Kais Sayed received 89.2 percent of the vote in Sunday's presidential election, exit polls show , quoted by Reuters and BTA.
Syed's main rival, businessman Ayashi Zamel, was jailed last month. Voter turnout, according to data from the electoral commission, was only 27.7 percent – half of the 2019 presidential runoff turnout.
Official results are not expected before Monday evening. If they confirm the exit poll data, there will be no runoffs and Syed will get a second term.
For years, Tunisia was considered the only relative success story after the “Arab Spring” since 2011. But human rights groups say the 66-year-old Sayed, who has been in power since 2019, has rolled back many of the democratic gains and rolled back much of the institutional and legal checks on his powers. He rejects the criticism and claims that he is fighting the corrupt elite and traitors and that he has no intention of becoming a dictator.
Over the past year, senior figures from the biggest parties opposed to Syed's rule have been jailed on various charges. These parties did not publicly support any of the three candidates in Sunday's vote – President Syed, Zamel and the former ally of the current President Zuhair Magzawi. Other potential candidates were not allowed to participate in the election.