IN a blow to democratic forces in the country, a Tunisian court has sentenced opposition leader Lotfi Mraihi to eight months in prison on charges of vote buying.
Mraihi, who leads the Republican Union Party and is a prominent critic of President Kais Saied, has also been banned from running in presidential elections for life, according to his lawyer Omar Ismail.
The ruling comes amid accusations from opposition parties that President Saied’s government is pressuring the judiciary to crack down on his rivals ahead of the 2024 elections. Many opposition leaders are already imprisoned.
While Saied, elected in 2019, has not officially announced his candidacy for the October 6 vote, he is widely expected to seek a second term. Last year, he stated he would not hand power to those he deemed “non-patriots.”
The opposition argues that fair elections are impossible without the release of imprisoned politicians and freedom for the media to operate without government pressure.
Saied dissolved parliament in 2021 and began ruling by decree, a move the opposition has labelled a coup. The president maintained that his actions were legal and necessary to combat corruption among the political elite.
Mraihi plans to appeal the sentence, his lawyer added.
