Supporters of incumbent Tunisian President Kais Saied celebrated in the capital on Sunday night after an exit poll broadcast on state television showed him winning the election by a landslide, ahead of his two rivals, one of whom is now in prison.
Turnout stood at 27.7 percent, the election commission said after the close of polls - just half what it was in the runoff round of the 2019 presidential election.
Official results are not expected until Monday evening but an exit poll by Sigma company, a polling agency, showed Saied in the lead with 89.2 percent of votes, according to state television.
In his first comment, Saied told state television, "We must wait for the results of the independent higher authority for the elections, but the results that were announced recently, which are exit polls, are, as in all countries, close to reality."
"This is a continuation of the revolution," he added. We will build and will cleanse the country of the corrupt, traitors and conspirators."
On the main avenue of Habib Bourguiba in the capital city of Tunis, supporters raised pictures of Saied and the Tunisian flag, chanting "The people want to build and develop."
Saied on Sunday faced two election rivals: his former ally turned critic, Chaab Party leader Zouhair Maghzaoui, and Ayachi Zammel, who was jailed last month.
But Zammel and Maghzaoui's campaigns rejected the exit poll results saying the real results will be different.
Maghzaoui even called an emergency meeting according to RFI's correspondent in Tunis, in which he announced that he did not give credence to these figures and asked the army to protect the electoral process.
"Unfortunately, the poll that was made public is not reliable," he assured. "It is a manoeuvre to prepare public opinion for the results that will probably be revealed tomorrow. I want to ask our security forces and our army to protect the electoral process from all the dangers that threaten it."
Opponents sidelined
Tunisia had for years been hailed as the only relative success story of the 2011 "Arab Spring" uprisings for introducing a competitive, though flawed, democracy following decades of autocratic rule.
Rights group Human Rights Watch has said more than "170 people are detained in Tunisia on political grounds or for exercising their fundamental rights".
Saied, 66, has rejected criticism of his actions, saying he is fighting a corrupt elite and traitors, and that he will not be a dictator.
Tunisia votes in presidential polls marked by economic and political woes
Senior figures from the biggest parties, which largely oppose Saied, have been imprisoned on various charges over the past year and those parties have not publicly backed any of the three candidates on Sunday's ballot. Other opponents have been barred from running.
"The vote's legitimacy is undoubtedly tainted with candidates who could have overshadowed Saied being systematically sidelined," said Hatem Nafti, a political commentator and author of a forthcoming book on the current president's authoritarian rule.
The vote's "democratic legitimacy is indeed weak, but there is no minimum threshold," said North Africa analyst Pierre Vermeren. "The majority of Tunisians let it happen."
Candidates disqualified
Political tensions have risen since an electoral commission named by Saied disqualified three prominent candidates last month, amid protests by opposition and civil society groups.
Lawmakers loyal to Saied then approved a law last week stripping the administrative court of authority over election disputes. This court is widely seen as the country's last independent judicial body, after Saied dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council and dismissed dozens of judges in 2022.
While elections in the years soon after the 2011 revolution were fiercely contested and drew very high participation rates, public anger at Tunisia's poor economic performance and corruption among the elite led to disillusionment.
'This country has let us down': young Tunisians seek future abroad
Saied, elected in 2019, seized more powers in 2021 when he dissolved the elected parliament and rewrote the constitution, a move the opposition described as a coup.
A referendum on the constitution passed with turnout of only 30 percent, while a January 2023 runoff for the new, nearly powerless, parliament he created with that constitution had turnout of only 11 percent.
Tunisia is also facing its worst economic crisis in its history.
Although tourism revenues are on the rise, the country depends on financial help from European countries, worried about migration, but state finances remain strained.
Tunisians face daily shortages of subsidised goods, as well as outages of power and water.
(with newswires)
