Just two-days to the election in Tunisia, lawyer to opposition presidential candidate Abdessattar Massoudi on Thursday said an Appeal Court upheld an 18-month prison sentence handed down to presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel.
Zammel, who has been in prison for a month, is one of three candidates running for the presidency, along with current President Kais Saied and politician Zouhair Maghzaoui.
Zammel, head of the opposition Azimoun party, has been jailed since last month on charges of falsifying voter signatures on his candidacy paperwork, accusations he described as manufactured by Saied’s government.
He has been allowed to continue to stand in the election while jailed.
Political tensions in the North African country have risen ahead of the Oct. 6 election since an electoral commission named by Saied disqualified three other prominent candidates last month, amid protests by opposition and civil society groups.
Tunisia was the only Arab country to emerge with a peaceful democracy from the 2011 “Arab Spring” protests against autocratic rulers across the Middle East and North Africa.
