Austere outsider out to shake up Tunisian politics

Enigmatic politician draws support from both Islamists and Leftists

Tarek Amara and Angus McDowall

Aretired law professor with an awkward public manner, little money, no political party and a commitment to an experimental form of direct democracy looks set to be Tunisia’s new president.

Two exit polls projected that Kais Saied handily won Sunday’s runoff election against media magnate Nabil Karoui, though no formal results have been announced.

Saied won the support of both Islamists and leftists, though his radical but socially conservative politics do not neatly chime with either group. It has left both his critics and supporters scrambling to define him.

“I did not make traditional promises or a traditional programme ... but new ideas that can be realised.. today we entered a new stage in the history of Tunisia,” he told Reuters after the first round of the election in September.

Tunisians also gave him most votes in the first round against an array of veteran political leaders, the sharpest rejection of Tunisia’s ruling elite since the 2011 uprising that ushered in democratic rule.

“He convinced us that change is possible and in our own hands,” said Bassam Naffati, a 22-year-old biology student who volunteered for Saied’s campaign.

The balding, 61-year-old, speaking in his usual ultra-formal style of classical Arabic, has described his success as “like a new revolution”.

Though he did well in opinion polls for months, his lack of an established political or media base made him something of a dark horse and a less familiar figure to many Tunisians than Karoui.

Both are relative outsiders, but they are very different. The wealthy, slickly presented Karoui has a television station and a large election team. He spent most of the election period in custody on suspicion of tax evasion and money laundering, which he denies.

Supporters of Saied, who spent so little on his campaign that Tunisians say it cost the price of a coffee, present him as a paragon of integrity.

His austere approach is plain in his campaign headquarters: a small upstairs apartment in an old downtown building with no elevator, broken windows and peeling paintwork equipped with little more than a small television and some plastic chairs.

“I knew him up close in 2011 after the revolution, during the first movement of youth against the old guard. He was one

of the few who understood our demands. He listened to us,” said Sonia Chriti, 40, a former student of Saied.

A former law faculty colleague, Jawher Ben Mubarek, said that during those tumultuous days they would wander late into the night through the narrow streets of the Kasbah and the grand colonial boulevards downtown, discussing politics.

In his office, the supporters gathered there included hijab-wearing conservatives, left-wing students, unemployed workers and university professors.

His conservative social views — favouring the death penalty and opposing homosexuality and equal inheritance for men and women — appear to have won him much support among Islamists.

However, Ben Mubarek, who has known Saied for many years, says he is neither an Islamist nor a fundamentalist. He has spoken against changing the constitution to base it on Islamic law and his wife, a judge, does not wear a headscarf.

He has urged a crackdown on foreign money in Tunisia, including on spending by non-government and civil society organisations.

The stripped-back campaign had no formal manager, but Saied’s closest adviser is Rida Mekki, a veteran leftwinger whose popular nickname is “Rida Lenin”. It was their collaboration over the past few years that pushed him from being an academic into politics, said Ben Mubarek. Saied was in the committee of experts that helped parliament draft Tunisia’s post-revolution constitution, adopted in 2014, and was sometimes invited on to television as a commentator. He was first noticed publicly when, asked what stage the draft constitution was in, he said: “It has been eaten by a donkey”.

The remark underscored his contempt for party politics and a directly elected parliament, something he wants Tunisia to entirely abandon in favour of a “democracy of individuals”.

He wants Tunisians to elect small local councils based on the character of their representatives rather than party or ideology. They would in turn choose regional representatives who would choose national ones. “Power must belong to people directly,” Saied said.

With politicians in Tunis dominating the post-revolutionary era, a period that included great economic disappointment, that sort of radical decentralisation appeals to many.

“We demanded the dignity and development of the marginalised regions... his proposal was to strengthen decentralisation in governance, and the voting system is the first step in giving more dignity and development to those regions,” said Chriti.

Saied appears to stand little chance of implementing this system. Changing the constitution needs a two-thirds majority in parliament, which is deeply fragmented after last week’s legislative election.

How ‘Robocop’, as some social media users dubbed him for the mechanical timbre of his voice, handles the frustrations of political life may determine what sort of president he would be.

I did not make traditional promises or a traditional programme but new ideas that can be realised.. today we entered a new stage in the history of Tunisia Kais Saied

It’s a historic day: Tunisia is reaping the fruits of the revolution. Kais Saied is going to put an end to corruption, he will be a fair president. Boussairi Abidi, a 39-year-old mechanic

We are very happy. Tunisia has an honest man at the helm now. The difference between the two candidates was the work he has been doing Mustafa El Ghali a family member of Saied

Congratulations to Tunisia; less for whom they voted, and more for showing a continued commitment to resolving differences via peaceful transitions,” H.A. Hellyer, a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London