He criticizes “exploiting the electoral process” to “attack national sovereignty” and rejects all “foreign interference”
Oct. 8 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The campaign team of Ayachi Zamel, candidate for the Presidency of Tunisia imprisoned before Sunday’s vote for cases related to the alleged falsification of documents presented to be able to go to the polls, has demanded his release and has appealed for “calm politics” after the elections, in which the current president, Kais Saied, has obtained re-election with more than 90 percent of the votes.
In a statement published through Zamel’s account on the social network Facebook, his team has pointed to the launch of a campaign to achieve his release and that of other people close to the politician detained in recent weeks, within the framework of the electoral campaign.
Likewise, he has called on Saied and the opposition parties to “promote the interest of the nation” and open “a comprehensive political calm” that includes the release of political prisoners to generate “a political, economic and social climate” that allows “to confront to economic challenges” and “address the construction of a rule of law, freedoms, economic prosperity and well-being”.
On the other hand, he expressed his “sincere gratitude” to Tunisians for participating in the elections, a fact that “confirms his ambition in building a democratic country in which the principles of the peaceful transfer of power, freedom and Human Rights”.
In this sense, he thanked those who voted for Zamel and asked them to join a project to “build a national political project that offers a national alternative and that gives Tunisians the opportunity to choose (about their future). “.
“More than 70 percent of Tunisian voters, especially young people, have not participated in the electoral process, which requires the authorities, the opposition and civil society to pay attention to this issue and to address it in a way that allows us to build a stable political life,” he reiterated.
Finally, the Zamel campaign has expressed its rejection of “exploiting the electoral process” and the situation derived from it to “attack national sovereignty” or “question the popular will”, for which it has expressed its rejection of ” “all calls for chaos” after the vote, once the official results have been announced.
“Political affairs, including elections, are a purely Tunisian matter that cannot be subject to any foreign interference,” he concluded. Zamel came second in the elections, with more than seven percent of the votes, while Zuhair Magzhaui received less than two percent of the ballots.
Saied, who in the 2019 elections won the second round with 72.7 percent of the votes – compared to 27.3 percent collected by tycoon Nabil Karui, who remained imprisoned for most of the electoral campaign – , has led a campaign of increasing repression since 2021 that has limited civic space, calling into question the representativeness of the elections.
Tunisia, considered one of the few examples of democratic success after the outbreak of the ‘Arab Spring’, has suffered during the last five years a setback in rights and freedoms that has been attributed to the president, which has led its critics to draw parallels with Zine el Abidine ben Ali, who governed the country from 1987 to 2011, and whose long mandate ended precisely with this revolution.
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