Tunisia parliament mulls controversial election reform law ahead of key vote

Tunisia’s parliament debated on Friday a bill that would strip a top court of its power to rule on election-related disputes, a move decried by protesters as anti-democratic just days before a presidential ballot.

The proposed judicial shift comes after Tunisia’s administrative court in August had overturned decisions barring three presidential hopefuls from running in the October 6 election – a ruling later ignored by the country’s electoral board, ISIE.

The frontrunner is incumbent President Kais Saied, who was democratically elected in 2019 but later orchestrated a sweeping power grab that included dissolving parliament and replacing it with a legislature with limited powers.

The draft law, which was swiftly pushed through the legislature and may be voted on as early as Friday, would take away power from the administrative court and instead make the court of appeals the only one with the authority to rule on issues related to elections.

Lawmakers in a statement have said they had drafted the bill over “discord” with the administrative court’s ruling that granted the barred candidates their appeals.

They also cited “imminent danger that threatens the unity of the state and its social order”.

More from World

Nepal's new PM pays homage to people died during the Gen Z protest in her first national address This Week in Explainers: How recovering from Gen-Z protests is a Himalayan task for Nepal

Observers say the administrative court is seen as more independent than the court of appeals.

Lawmakers were working to “urgently pass this law to remove administrative litigation from the administrative court, because this court has shown a certain unpleasant independence”, said Alexis Deswaef, vice-president of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

A small crowd of demonstrators gathered Friday outside the parliament building to protest the proposed reform.

“Laws revised in the middle of elections in favour of Kais Saied = death of democracy,” read one sign.

Impact Shorts

More Shorts

‘The cries of this widow will echo’: In first public remarks, Erika Kirk warns Charlie’s killers they’ve ‘unleashed a fire’

Trump urges Nato to back sanctions on Russia, calls for 50–100% tariffs on China

Wissam Sghaier, spokesman for centrist party Al Jomhouri, denounced the bill as a “last-minute change of the rules of the game”.

He called it “a political crime in all its splendour” that adds to “the abuse and repression” on Saied’s critics.

Ahead of the vote, ISIE had rejected the presidential bids of some 14 potential candidates.

The electoral board eventually presented a final list of only three candidates, Saied and two others – former parliamentarian Zouhair Maghzaoui and businessman Ayachi Zammel.

Zammel has been kept behind bars since early September, and on Thursday was handed a six-month prison term on top of a previous 20-month sentence for forging ballot endorsements.

International and Tunisian rights groups have criticised ISIE’s decision to ignore the administrative court’s rulings, which Tunisia’s largest labour union UGTT called “political”.

Earlier this month, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said ISIE had “intervened to skew the ballot in favour of Saied”, with at least eight prospective candidates prosecuted, convicted or imprisoned in the run-up to the election.