Tunisian opposition figure Moussi sentenced to prison ahead of October election

TUNIS, Tunisia 

A presidential candidate in Tunisia has been sentenced to two years in prison, marking another setback to the country’s fledgling opposition challenging President Kais Saied as he seeks a new term.

Abir Moussi, a 49-year-old lawyer and the head of the right-wing Free Destourian Party, was arrested in October after criticizing the electoral process and presidential decrees guiding it, alleging a lack of transparency.

Following a complaint by the North African nation's election authority, she was found guilty of violating a controversial anti-fake news decree outlawing spreading information that slanders or harms others. The law has been widely used to prosecute those who criticize authorities.

Moussi’s lawyer Nafaa Laribi told The Associated Press on Tuesday that she still intends to run in the Oct. 6 presidential election, and that, unlike other candidates, nothing in Monday's sentence prevents her from running.

Laribi said Moussi's morale remained high, and he planned to appeal.

The sentence is the latest in a growing crackdown that observers have said is politically motivated against Saied's critics, regardless of political affiliation.

With Moussi and other leading opposition figures in prison, Saied is expected to face little election competition in what was once the Middle East and North Africa’s most progressive democracy.

Moussi appeals to parts of the population nostalgic for Tunisia’s pre-revolutionary era.

A strong critic of Islamists such as imprisoned Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi, Moussi was an official in longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s ruling party. 

Over the years, she became one of the country’s most popular and contentious political figures.