Tunisia’s Autocratic Leader Is Poised to Steamroll to Election Victory
The New York Times
President Kais Saied, who has jailed opponents and consolidated power, is almost certain to win Sunday’s election in the North African country, the birthplace of the Arab Spring movement.
For many Tunisians, there seems to be little point to the presidential election on Sunday. There are barely any candidate posters, no debates and not much suspense. The president, Kais Saied, appears so sure of victory that he has not even issued any policy proposals.
His leading challenger is in prison, serving three separate sentences on what his lawyers say are falsified charges, the longest sentence lasting 12 years. At least eight other would-be candidates are in jail or under a form of house arrest, and others have been disqualified from the ballot.
More than a decade after mass protests toppled the country’s longtime dictator, Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, prompting other Arab Spring revolts across the Middle East, few in Tunisia still believe they live in a democracy. The string of punishments for the president’s critics and his ever-tightening hold over the election process in recent months have left little doubt that Mr. Saied’s one-man rule is here to stay.
“He’s willing to do anything it takes to stay in power — dividing Tunisians, prosecuting them, accusing them,” said Souhaib Fercheche, 30, a senior campaigner at I Watch, a civic watchdog formed by young Tunisians in the heady, hopeful days after the country’s 2011 revolution.
The protests that year ushered in a decade of embryonic democracy for Tunisia. To outsiders especially, it was the only success story to emerge from the Arab Spring. But Tunisians who had demanded better opportunities and a cleaned-up government never received what they thought democracy had promised.
Israel has said it is striking Syrian military sites and chemical weapons stockpiles to prevent them from falling “into the hands of extremists.” The rebels who toppled the Assad government began laying out their plans.
The fighters who forced Bashar al-Assad into exile began the complex task of governing the Syrian capital. New York Times reporters entering the country saw relics of the deposed regime on the highway from Lebanon.
After just a few days of rapid advances, the rebels appeared to control Syria’s capital. They said they would work with a top official in President Bashar al-Assad’s government. Mr. al-Assad’s location was unclear.
A centuries-old bell rang and an archbishop knocked at the Gothic cathedral’s great doors, which reopened for a V.I.P. ceremony after its monumental reconstruction. It opens to the public on Sunday.
Two war monitoring groups said Syria’s military had pulled out of a number of Damascus suburbs where anti-government protests erupted. The movements could not immediately be confirmed.
President Yoon Suk Yeol said he would not seek to impose martial law again and that he would leave his fate to his party. Lawmakers will vote on whether to impeach him later on Saturday.
The leader of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s own party has backed impeachment, on which the National Assembly is set to vote on Saturday.
The military has spent decades trying to rehabilitate its image and win public trust after a brutal past. Its role in President Yoon’s martial law raised a specter from that era.
Top military officials offered the first inside account of when President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law. Mr. Yoon faces impeachment on Saturday, and massive protests against him are planned.
President Yoon Suk Yeol’s attempt to break a political deadlock by imposing military rule collapsed within hours, leaving him with few defenders. A vote to impeach him could come as soon as Friday.
President Yoon Suk Yeol’s attempt to break a political deadlock by imposing military rule collapsed within hours, leaving him with few defenders. A vote to impeach him could come as soon as Friday.