Tunisia’s presidential vote pits professor versus prisoner

The professor refuses to campaign for president and the prisoner cannot, yet both are running for Tunisia’s highest office.

Tunisian voters sent two political outsiders into the presidential run-off, forcing a choice between an obscure conservative law professor who believes Tunisians know enough about him already and a media magnate whose face is plastered over posters nationwide, but who’s been in jail for the last month on corruption allegations.

Professor Kais Saied is refusing to hold rallies, print posters or use any of the usual marketing that drives a modern presidential campaign. He won the first round on September 15, with 18 per cent of the vote.

In second with 15 per cent was Nabil Karoui, a jailed mogul who sends out Facebook missives and letters via his wife and lawyers but otherwise must rely upon supporters and his long-standing reputation as the head of a charity that hands out macaroni and other gifts to the poor – or potential voters, depending on your perspective. He denies the charges, claiming they aim to hurt him at the polls.

Those results mean that fewer than one in five who voted in the first presidential round will actually get the leader they wanted, a major test for Tunisia’s young democracy.