Tunisia: A businessman jailed for corruption was the second most voted vote and goes to the polls

Ultra-conservative lawyer Kaïes Said and businessman Nabil Karoui will stand in the polls for the Tunisian presidency after being the two most voted candidates in the first round today, according to reports. polls.

Said, an independent who defends the death penalty and repudiates homobaduality, which he attributes to a foreign plot, garnered 19.5 percent of the vote, according to polls.

Karoui, a media mogul detained on suspicion of alleged corruption, was the second aide to the ruling Nida Tunis.

The elections, advanced because of the sudden death of President Beyi Caid Essebsi last July, will determine whether Tunisia will complete the fragile democratic transition initiated with the Arab Spring and the overthrow of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

According to data from the Independent Higher Independent Electoral Commission (ISIE), about 40% of citizens entitled to vote participated in the vote, almost 25 points less than in the 2014 elections.

The day, during which Tunisians had to choose between 24 candidates for state headquarters, developed calmly but was eclipsed by the death of Essebsi's widow, Chadlia Farhat Caied, an elderly 83 years, according to news agencies. EFE and Europa Press.

The experts had anticipated that the economic crisis – the main concern of Tunisians – and the way in which the youth vote would behave be the key to a result as uncertain as tight, which will surely influence the parliamentary elections of October New Parliament and the government.

It will be the new elected authorities in October – president, legislators and, indirectly, the government – that will determine whether the country is moving forward and completing the fragile democratic transition initiated in 2011, when a series of mbad protests, known as the of the Tunisian Arab Spring, put an end to the long, authoritarian government of Ben Ali.