Tunisia’s administrative court rejects appeals against first round of elections
Tunisia’s administrative Court on Monday rejected the six appeals filed by candidates over the results of the first round of the presidential elections held on September 15th.
Independent candidate Qais Said led the results of the first round with 18.4% of the vote, followed by Nabil Karoui, the candidate of the liberal “Heart of Tunisia” party with 15.58%, which allows them to compete in the second round.
The Tunisian official news agency (WAT) quoted a member of the Independent High Electoral Commission, Hasna Ben Slimane, that the Appeals Chambers of the Administrative Court rejected the six appeals submitted by candidates for the presidential elections in its first round.
Benslimane added that three requests for appeal were rejected by Saif Eddine Makhlouf, Abdel Karim Zubeidi and Salim Riahi.
Because of the appeals, it became impossible to organize the second round of the presidential elections on the first date set by the Electoral Commission on September 29, according to Farouk Bouaskar, Vice-President of the Commission for the island Net.
The electoral law requires the second round of elections to be held no later than 15 days from the date of the announcement of the final results of the first round, and the decisions of the electoral commission shall be challenged by the candidates not later than 48 hours after the announcement of the results.
On the extent of the impact of the appeals submitted on the results of the elections announced, Bouaskar has ruled out any change, stressing that the violations observed by some candidates assessed by the Commission as not affecting the results.
