The Court of First Instance of Tunisia on Friday sentenced opposition leader Lotfi Mraihi to eight months in prison with a lifetime ban from contesting elections on charges of illicitly influencing votes through gifts and cash, as reported by local media. 

Mraihi is the founder and president of the Union Populaire Républicaine (Republican Union Party). He has been one of the vocal critics of the current president Kais Saied. Mraihi has also been ordered to pay a fine of 2,000 Tunisian Dinars (approximately $650). The court has sentenced other officials from the party with the same charges, Tunis Afrique Presse (TAP) reports. 

The public prosecutor’s office launched an investigation against Mraihi and his party correspondent on July 1 this year. On July 5, the investigating judge of the Tunisian court released an arrest warrant against Mraihi and the secretary general of his party for money laundering along with the unauthorized opening of bank accounts and illicit transfer of money abroad.

Early in July this year, Mraihi expressed his intention to run for the upcoming presidential election and was also a candidate in the 2019 election. Kais Saied announced his candidacy for the October 6 elections on the same day of Mraihi’s arrest.

Saied has been accused of interfering with the country’s judiciary to restrict his opposition in the upcoming election where he would be running for the second term in office.

Amnesty International reported on the dire state of judicial independence in the country when Saied moved to dissolve Tunesia’s High Judicial Council in 2022.