Rejected poll monitors accuse Tunisia's election authorities of bias
Election officials in Tunisia have doubled down on their decision to deny accreditation to certain election observer groups
TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Election officials in Tunisia doubled down Monday on their decision to deny accreditation to some election observer groups who say the move shows the October presidential contest in the North African country won't be free and fair.
The Independent High Authority for Elections, or ISIE, said in a statement that several civil society groups that had applied for accreditation had received a “huge amount” of foreign funding of a “suspicious origin” and therefore had to be denied accreditation to observe the election.
Though the ISIE did not explicitly name the groups, one of its commission members said last weekend that it sent formal allegations against two specific groups to Tunisia’s public prosecutor, making similar claims that they took funding from abroad.
The two organizations, I-Watch and Mourakiboun (which means “Observers” in Arabic) are not the first civil society groups to be pursued by authorities in Tunisia. Under President Kais Saied, non-governmental organizations have increasingly been targeted for their work, which spans from aid for migrants to human rights to local development efforts.
