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Thirty-four Tunisian lawmakers proposed on Friday an urgent bill to strip the administrative court of its authority to adjudicate electoral disputes, a move that the opposition says would discredit a 6 October presidential election.

The administrative court is widely seen as the last independent judicial body in Tunisia, after President Kais Saied took control of the judiciary since dissolving the Supreme Judicial Council and dismissing dozens of judges in 2022.

Political tensions in the North African country have risen ahead of the election since an electoral commission named by Saied disqualified three prominent candidates, Mondher Znaidi, Abdellatif Mekki, and Imed Daimi.

The commission defied the administrative court, the highest judicial body in election-related disputes, and allowed only two candidates to stand against Saied.

One of them, Ayachi Zammel, is in jail after being sentenced on Wednesday to 20 months in prison for falsifying signatures on election paperwork in what he calls a politically motivated case.

Law professors said this month in a statement that the electoral commission’s refusal to reinstate candidates threatens to render the elections illegitimate, should any candidate appeal the election results in the administrative court.

Saied was elected in 2019 in Tunisia, the only country to have emerged peacefully with democratic leadership from the 2011 Arab Spring protests that toppled autocrats across the Middle East and North Africa.

But he has since tightened his grip on power and began ruling by decree in 2021 in a move the opposition has described as a coup.

Critics have accused Saied of using the electoral commission and judiciary to secure victory by stifling competition and intimidating other candidates.

Saied has denied the accusations, saying he is fighting traitors, mercenaries, and the corrupt, and he will not be a dictator.

The bill document seen by Reuters would give ordinary courts rather than the administrative court exclusive jurisdiction over electoral disputes.

Opposition and civil society groups say the judiciary is not independent and Saied is using it against his opponents.

(Reuters)