KAIS SAIED CONSERVATIVE AT THE HEAD OF TUNISIA

A lawyer known for his societal conservatism but with still vague intentions, 61-year-old Kaïs Saïed came out ahead of his opponent, businessman Nabil Karoui, who was prosecuted for tax evasion.

He had already led the first round on September 15, with 18.4% of the vote, after a low-cost campaign on his own money.

At the announcement of the first results the winner thanked "the young people who opened a new page of history", in front of his supporters gathered in a hotel in the center of Tunis. "We will try to build a new Tunisia," he said, "I know the extent of responsibility," he said.

An atypical politician

Born on February 22nd, 1958 in a family originating from Beni Khiar on the east coast of Tunisia, son of an official of the municipality and a mother educated but remained at home, he grew up in Rades, suburb of the middle class in the south of Tunis. He does all his studies in Tunisian public education.

Graduated at the age of 28 at the International Academy of Constitutional Law in Tunis, he was assistant professor in Sousse (center-east), where he briefly headed a public law department. From 1999 until 2018, he teaches at the Faculty of Legal and Political Sciences of Tunis. He retired from the public university in 2018. A specialist in constitutional law, he made himself known to the general public by commenting on the 2014 constitution of the young Tunisian democracy on television sets.

Without any experience of power and without party, this austere man owes his meteoric rise to the rejection by the Tunisians of the system and the ruling class and not to his electoral platform.

No political program

Indeed Kaïs Saïed did not present any electoral program. But he is for a participatory democracy: he intends to give, through local assemblies , reverse governance that would make the ground a democratic place of proposals, to the detriment of Parliament. To do this, it would have to amend the Constitution with the support of part of Parliament.

In addition, he is known for his socially conservative positions that have earned him accusations of fundamentalism. But his political speech is not based on any religious references. And he promised not to come back on newly acquired rights by women

The one nicknamed Robocop for his chopped debit will have for first challenge to widen the restricted circle of his collaborators, currently composed of a handful of passionate followers, but without experience of power.