In 2019, the Munathara Initiative proudly contributed to Tunisia’s democratic transition through the organization of the country’s first-ever presidential and parliamentary electoral debates;also the first live, televised free and fair electoral debates in the Arabic speaking world. 

The Munathara initiative convened a powerful coalition of public and private broadcasters, Tunisia’s Independent High Authority for Elections (ISIE), and the country’s broadcast regulator, the High Authority for Audiovisual Communication (HAICA), in order to implement a series of candidate debates ahead of the general elections. 

Hundreds of Tunisians from all 24 governorates, including the Initiative’s key target populations—youth, women, and marginalized communities (YWM)—were engaged in the process through workshops designed to solicit voters’ issues of most common concern. Hundreds more contributed questions and opinions through Munathara’s web platform built specifically for this purpose.

Some 6.4 million citizens watched the program live on Tunisian television alone, with every national TV and radio broadcaster carrying the signal. 

The Munathara initiative’s broadcast syndication effort was a major success beyond Tunisia also: channels in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and Iraq aired the debates live to their national audiences. Regionally, leading satellite broadcasters like Sky News Arabia, Al Araby, Aljazeera, El Hayat, and Al Ghad Al Araby aired the full debate for citizens in more than 20 Arab countries. Live feeds were also made available through the Associated Press, Agence France Press and Reuters, leading to press coverage around the world. 

On social media, several dozen live streams were followed by millions more. While independently verified global ratings for the debate cannot be obtained for cost reasons, it seems conservative to estimate that the total audience across all channels went well beyond 10 million viewers across the Arab world. 

On October 13th, 2019 the second round of the presidential elections was held; Kais Said won with 72.7% of the vote, marking yet another milestone in Tunisian history and adding one more accolade to its nascent democratic credentials.