As Tunisia gears up for the country's upcoming presidential election on October 6, observers are worried that incumbent President Kais Saied is derailing the vote's democratic foundation. 

Of the 17 candidates who had announced to run for president, 14 contenders have either been detained or excluded from running.

On Monday, the country's electoral authority, the ISIE, approved only three candidates in total. Many observers don't actually regard the commission as independent, given that Saied nominated all seven members himself.

In addition to Saied, Zouhair Maghzaoui, a former member of parliament and Ayachi Zammel, a businessman who leads a small pro-business party, were admitted as candidates.

However, it remains to be seen if Zammel will actually be able to run. Following his approval as a candidate, police forces temporarily detained him on September 4. His lawyer told The Associated Press news agency that Zammel was accused of falsifying signatures, which he has denied.

"We may witness elections while the candidates are in prison," Romdhane Ben Omar, the spokesperson of the non-governmental human rights organization, the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, told DW.

Full-scale crackdown

The latest ISIE decision to approve Saied, Maghzaoui and Zammel as candidates actually went against a ruling on August 31 by Tunisia's administrative court — the legally binding entity that has exclusive jurisdiction over electoral candidacy disputes.

The court had reinstated three additional candidates who had appealed against their rejection.

"By disregarding the decision of the administrative court on the admission of the three other candidates, the election process has ultimately been delegitimized," said Heike Löschmann, the director of the Tunis Office of the German Heinrich Böll Foundation.

Return to autocratic rule?

Saied, a 66-year-old former law professor, was democratically elected as president in 2019 with a majority of 72% of the votes.

However, in July 2021, he began consolidating his power and dismantled most of the country's democratic bodies.

Since then, repressing political dissent, muzzling independent media and hollowing out judicial independence has become part and parcel of the new Tunisian reality, human rights organizations have said.

This summer, Saied also let go of the majority of cabinet members and ordered gag orders on leading opposition figures.

"The current situation is unprecedented as the president wants to get reelected by sidelining competitors, without allowing competition and free and fair elections," Hamza Meddeb, a Tunis-based research fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center think tank, told DW.

For Meddeb, this is a reversal of the achievements of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011. "Tunisia, which had been the democratic lighthouse of the region for a decade, is now witnessing an autocratic restoration with almost no hope to get back to a democratic path," he said.

According to the state-run Tunisian press agency, Saied has a somewhat different perspective on the state of affairs. "No pressure has been exerted on anyone," he said in August, adding that "those who complain of obstacles and difficulties seek to sow chaos and discord and spread rumors and lies."

Yet the past three years of Saied's rule have also led to a decrease in popularity. Last year's parliamentary election saw a record low turnout of just 11%.

Weaponizing migration

In his election campaign, Saied stressed that his reelection would be key for the "war of national liberation" he claims is marked by a migrant crisis. 

Over time, Tunisia has turned into one of the most popular departure points for migrants from sub-Saharan countries on the way to Europe. 

However, a €1 billion deal with the EU in summer 2023 to help Tunisia's ailing economy meant that the country began curbing migration to Italy, leading to a 70% drop according to Italy's authorities.

At home, Saied has repeatedly described "migrants as a threat to the society, depicting himself as the savior," said Medded.

Increasingly, the crackdown on migrants has also targeted Tunisian nongovernmental organizations who help migrants.

This summer, several offices were closed down, accounts confiscated and people arrested.

One of them is Saadia Mesbah, who heads the NGO Mnemti, an organization that specializes in defending sub-Saharan migrants.

"Saadia Mesbah remains in detention although no official charges have been brought up against her," Ziad Rouini, the organization's coordinator told DW via the messenger service Telegram as he fears that his phone is tapped by the authorities. "Mnemti has since been in a state of complete stagnation," he added.

For Romdhane Ben Amor of the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights, the extended crackdown is simply undoing all the achievements of the Arab Spring revolution.

"Kais Saied's current path undermines the remaining gains of the revolution, such as freedom, pluralism, freedom of expression and now it also criminalizes and forbids any form of solidarity and help," he said.

Edited by: Andreas Illmer