Tunisia: presidential candidate sentenced to 12 years in prison

Tunisian presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel of the Azimoun Movement was sentenced to 12 years in prison yesterday for allegedly “falsifying endorsements” in order to be able to stand in the election, Anadolu has reported.

According to defence lawyer Faouzi Jaballah, the Tunis 2 Court of First Instance sentenced Zammel to three years for each of four related cases against him. He pointed out that Siwar Bargaoui, also of the Azimoun Movement received the same sentences. The lawyer said that the sentences are subject to appeal.

“Zammel was sentenced two weeks ago to one year and eight months in prison by a court in the governorate of Jendouba,” added Jaballah, “and sentenced to an additional six months in prison on Wednesday following a verdict delivered by a court in the governorate of Siliana.”

Zammel’s campaign team said that the sentences amount to “persecution” to get him to withdraw from the presidential election due to be held on Sunday, 6 October. “These sentences are political after Zammel became a symbol of the democratic struggle because of his defence of the rights of Tunisians.” They will have no impact on his candidacy, it was stressed. “Tunisians will find his name on the ballot paper on Sunday.”

Tunisian human rights activists have said that the judgement against Zammel does not mean he will be disqualified from running in the presidential election, because it is a preliminary judgement subject to appeal.

The Tunisian authorities say that elections in the country are characterised by integrity, transparency and fair competition. Tunisian law requires candidates to collect ten endorsements from members of parliament, 40 endorsements from heads of local, regional or municipal councils, or 10,000 endorsements from citizens distributed across ten electoral districts.

The electoral commission announced on 2 September that the final list of candidates for the presidential race was limited to three out of 17: President Kais Saied; the leader of the Azimoun Movement, Ayachi Zammel, the opposition candidate; and the Secretary-General of the People’s Movement, Zouhair Maghzaoui, a supporter of Saied.

The commission refused to accept three opposition candidates, even though the administrative court ruled that they were eligible to run in the election, on the grounds that they were “not notified of the ruling within the legally specified period.”

The three were named as the Secretary-General of the Labour and Achievement Party, Abdellatif Mekki; Mondher Zenaidi, a former minister under the late President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali; and Imed Daimi, the former head of the office of President Moncef Marzouki.

OPINION: A second presidential term for Kais Saied… at what political cost?