Tunisia - Presidential candidate and incumbent President Kais Saied has won a new presidential term, according to official preliminary results announced by the Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE) on Monday night, showing a wide lead over his two rivals, former MP and businessman Ayachi Zammel and Echaab Movement Secretary General Zouhair Maghzaoui.

Saied, 66, secured 90.69 per cent of the vote, compared to 7.35 per cent for Zammel and 1.97 per cent for Maghzaoui. This gives Saied a first-round victory in the presidential election.

Turnout reached 28.8 per cent as two million 808,548 Tunisian voters went to polling stations inside and outside the country to elect a new president for 2024-2029.

Head of the ISIE, Farouk Bouasker, said on Sunday after the polls closed that the electoral process was "well organised" as Tunisians went to some 10,000 polling stations spread across 59 countries "without registering any malfunctions, shortages or problems".

The estimated results of a poll conducted by "Sigma Conseil", announced on Watania 1 TV shortly after polls closed on Sunday, were almost identical to the official preliminary results presented by the electoral authority on Monday evening, both of which showed Saied winning by a wide margin over his two rivals.

The poll results showed Saied with more than 89 per cent of the vote in Tunisia, followed by Ayachi Zammel with almost 7 per cent and Zouhair Maghzaoui with around 4 per cent of the vote.

As soon as the estimated results were announced, Saied's supporters took to Habib Bourguiba Street in the centre of the capital to celebrate on Sunday night.

Commenting on the results, Saied said that 'the Tunisian people have shown an awareness and steadfastness unprecedented in history'. He assured supporters at his campaign headquarters and on a tour of Habib Bourguiba Street that he would 'work according to the people's wishes and build the country and cleanse it of the corrupt, sceptics and conspirators'.

Since his election to the presidency, President Said has made the fight against corruption a rallying cry. In his current election manifesto, he asserts that he will never shy away from 'the challenge of cleaning up the country and removing all obstacles, whatever their size and origin, and whoever the perpetrators are'.

On the other hand, he stressed that 'the time has come to build the national economy, to rebuild public institutions after having purified them, and to develop new legislation through which the state will regain its social role'.

These elections are the first under a 'new republic' (the Third Republic), the foundations of which were laid by the Constitution of 2022. That constitution reformulates the country's political system towards a return to a presidential system with broad powers, instead of the modified semi-parliamentary system established by the 2014 constitution.

In 2021, President Kais Saied led what became known as the 'July 25 Process' following a severe political crisis in the country. He activated Article 80 of the 2014 constitution, dissolved parliament, dismissed the government and drafted a new constitution.

Saied stressed that the 'process' aimed to prevent the collapse of the pillars of the state, describing it as a 'corrective process' that the then ruling coalition (the parliamentary majority that formed the government) rejected, denounced and worked to undermine.

President Saied will lead the country for a second term (2024-2029). According to the 2022 Constitution, "the Presidency of the Republic may not be held for more than two consecutive or separate full terms (Article 90)".

Saied won the 2019 presidential elections, following the death of former president Beji Caid Essebsi, with nearly 73 per cent of the vote in the second round.

Observers described his victory in these elections as a 'political earthquake', as he was a newcomer to the political scene at the time and was categorised as outside the 'classical' political class.

Saied chose 'the People Want' as his campaign slogan, a slogan that emerged during the Tunisian revolution (December 17, 2010 - January 14, 2011) and is almost identical to the slogan he used in his campaign for the 2024 presidential race, 'the People Want to Build and Construct'.

Saied says he is 'independent of all parties and will remain so after his election', arguing that the era of parties is 'bankrupt and gone' and that power 'will be in the hands of the people who decide their destiny and make their choices'.

He called this approach 'the new revolutionary transition'. He then announced that he would amend the constitution to make it 'grassroots', saying in response to his critics that they 'do not understand the youth of the revolution ... and that construction must start from the local, regional and national levels to truly reflect the true will of the people'.

Kais Saied was born in Tunis on February 22, 1958. He holds a degree in international law from the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences in Tunis, a diploma from the International Academy of Constitutional Law and a diploma from the International Institute of Humanitarian Law in San Remo, Italy.

He began his career as a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Political Sciences in Sousse in 1986 and moved to the Faculty of Law, Political and Social Sciences in Tunis in 1999.

From 1994 to 1999, he was Director of the Department of Public Law at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Political Sciences in Sousse.

Saied was the rapporteur of the two special committees of the General Secretariat of the League of Arab States to prepare the draft amendment of the League's Charter and the draft statute of the Arab Court of Justice in 1989 and 1990, and a cooperating expert with the Arab Institute for Human Rights from 1993 to 1995.

From 1990 to 1995, he was Secretary General and then Vice-President of the Tunisian Association of Constitutional Law.

Since 1997, he has been a member of the Scientific Council and Board of Directors of the International Academy of Constitutional Law and President of the Tunisian Centre for Constitutional Law for Democracy.

He is the author of numerous academic works in the field of law, in particular constitutional law.

He is married with three children.

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