So. In "an atmosphere of repression" (© Human Rights Watch) president Ben Ali won the Tunisian election with 89.62% of the votes. That's a drop of almost five per cent on the 1994 result and 10 per cent less than in 1999 when he got a truly incredible 99.66%. If his support continues...
Blog archive: Tunisia
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27th October 2009
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25th October 2009Tunisians are voting for a new parliament today and also re-electing Zine el Abidine Ben Ali for yet another presidential term. Ben Ali, who is 73, has been in power for almost 22 years. Three other candidates are contesting the presidency but it’s scarcely worth mentioning them....
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24th October 2009The Tunisian
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24th October 2009The Tunisian authorities are taking their usual efficient measures to ensure that uppity journalists do nothing to cast a shadow over President Ben Ali's re-election tomorrow. On Tuesday, Le Monde correspondent Florence Beaugé was refused entry and, after a night at Tunis airport, bundled back...
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4th October 2009With just three weeks to go before Tunisia’s presidential and parliamentary elections, the Ettajdid Movement (one of the permitted opposition political parties) is complaining that half of its parliamentary candidate lists have been rejected by the authorities “without any convincing...
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21st September 2009More harassment of the Tunisian regime’s critics: Abdallah Zouari, a journalist for the Islamist newspaper al-Fajr, spent 11 years in jail for "membership in an illegal organisation" (al-Nahda party) and "attempting to overthrow the state". Following his release, he was forced to...
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13th September 2009There's an intriguing tale about Tunisia on the French-language blog, Chakchouka Tunisienne, and I'm hoping readers may be able to shed some more light on it. It says a businessman in Sfax was getting married and invited Belhassen Trabelsi, the president's brother-in-law to his...
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30th August 2009To the surprise of nobody, President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali has formally declared his candidacy in Tunisia’s presidential election on October 25. This will give him another five-year term, taking him up to the age of 77. In 2004, he secured more than 94% of the vote against three...
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21st August 2009With a presidential “election” coming up in Tunisia in October, you might think Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s position looks secure. The 72-year-old dictator has been in power since 1987 and the last time he sought a popular mandate, in 2004, he secured an incredible 94.48% of the votes. But...
