A Tunisian court announced on Friday that it had accepted the appeal of a potential presidential candidate whose initial application had been turned down, permitting him to participate in the upcoming election on October 6.
Imed Daimi, who previously advised former president Moncef Marzouki, was one of 14 candidates rejected by the Tunisian election authority, ISIE, from running in the election.
This week, the administrative court overturned the authority’s decision to disqualify three candidates, marking the third such reversal.
The ISIE, scheduled to release the final list of presidential candidates next week, has not yet confirmed whether the approved candidates will compete.
The electoral authority has sanctioned the candidacies of three hopefuls, including the current President, Kais Saied.
The appeals of former minister Mondher Zenaidi, opposition party leader Abdellatif Mekki, and Daimi have been granted by the administrative court. If allowed to run, they would join former parliamentarian Zouhair Maghzaoui and businessman Ayachi Zammel as challengers to Saied.
Daimi, 54, is the vice president of the opposition party Harak, which is led by the exiled former president Marzouki, a vocal critic of Saied. Marzouki was the first president to be elected in Tunisia after the 2011 uprising that ousted longtime ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and triggered the Arab Spring protests in the region.
In absentia, Marzouki was sentenced to eight years in prison last February for attempting to “incite disorder” in Tunisia. In 2021, he received a four-year prison term for threatening national security.
Saied has referred to him as an “enemy of Tunisia”.
Saied, who was democratically elected in 2019, carried out a broad power consolidation in 2021. He is now seeking a second term, while a number of his political rivals and critics are either imprisoned or facing prosecution.