Conservative wins vote, polls show
TUNIS, Tunisia — A conservative, Islamistbacked law professor looked set to assume Tunisia’s presidency after polling agencies suggested he overwhelmingly won Sunday’s runoff election in the country that unleashed the Arab Spring prodemocracy uprisings.
Kais Saied’s supporters exploded with joy, celebrating on the main boulevard of Tunis, and Saied thanked his supporters and announced plans to travel to neighboring Libya and Algeria and to champion the Palestinian cause.
Official results of the topsyturvy election — in which Saied’s rival, Nabil Karoui, spent most of the campaign behind bars — weren’t expected until Tuesday.
The winner inherits a North African country struggling to create jobs, revive tourism and overcome sporadic extremist violence — but proud of its stillbudding democracy. This is only Tunisia’s second free presidential election.
Polls carried in Tunisian media by Sigma Conseil and Emhrod Consulting forecast that Saied would come out on top with between 72% and 77% of the votes. Media magnate Karoui was projected to win between 23% and 27%.
The polling agencies questioned several thousand people in person in various constituencies on voting day. Emhrod Consulting said its poll had a margin of error of two percentage points, while Sigma Conseil said its margin of error was 1.5 points.
Saied, 61, is an independent outsider but is supported by moderate Islamist party Ennahdha, which won last week’s parliamentary elections. He promised to overturn Tunisia’s governing structure, handing more power to young people and local governments.
“A new page in history is turning,” he told reporters in Tunis after the polls came out.
A former constitutional law professor, Saied promised to uphold Tunisia’s postrevolution constitution, saying, “No one will be above the law.”
Despite the backing of Ennahdha, he described himself as politically neutral.
“I am independent and will remain so until the end of my life,” he said.
Firmly conservative, Saied opposes equal inheritance rights for daughters and sons, arguing that the hotbutton issue is decided by the Quran, the Muslim holy book.
With pokerstraight posture, a blank visage and a staccato speaking style — in literary Arabic inaccessible to many in the rural interior — he has been assigned the nickname “Robocop.”
A 2013 TV show with a hidden camera, and Saied as guest, created a fake earthquake in the studio. Things banged, the table shook violently, along with Saied’s chair. He sat impassively, at one point only looking at his watch.
During the presidential race, Saied shunned political rallies, preferring to run his campaign from discreet locations like cafes, or let young people rally support.
He enjoyed an enthusiastic youth campaign machine that cheered him on Twitter, and backing from the No. 1 and No. 3 parties in the new parliament: the moderate Islamist party Ennahdha and the Al Karama Coalition, led by a radical Islamist lawyer.
More than 100,000 police, soldiers and security forces guarded polling stations, and thousands of local and foreign observers monitored the vote.
The presidential vote was held early after the July death in office of President Beji Caid Essebsi.