Law professor and political outsider Kais Saied on Monday led Tunisia’s presidential polls with two-thirds of the votes counted, the electoral commission said, after the country’s second free vote for head of state since the 2011 Arab Spring.
France 24 reports “Saied was on 18.9 percent, ahead of imprisoned media magnate Nabil Karoui, who was on 15.5 percent, according to the electoral commission, ISIE.
Local papers splashed photos of Saied and Karoui across their front pages on Monday. “Political earthquake,” read the headline of Arabic language Echourouk newspaper, while Francophone Le Temps entitled its editorial “The Slap”.
The result was a major upset for Tunisia’s political establishment, in place since the uprising eight years ago that ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Prime Minister Youssef Chahed, a presidential hopeful whose popularity has been tarnished by a sluggish economy and the rising cost of living, could well turn out to be the election’s biggest loser. ISIE figures showed him in fifth place with 7.4 percent of the vote, trailing both Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party candidate Abdelfattah Mourou and former defence minister Abdelkarim Zbidi. “The anti-system strategy has won,” ISIE member Adil Brinsi told AFP, but added: “It’s not finished yet. Mourou could very easily move from third to second place, in front of Karoui.”
