TUNIS, Tunisia, Sept 10, (AP): Election officials in Tunisia doubled down Monday on their decision to deny accreditation to some election observer groups who say the move shows the October presidential contest in the North African country won't be free and fair.

The Independent High Authority for Elections, or ISIE, said in a statement that several civil society groups that had applied for accreditation had received a "huge amount” of foreign funding of a "suspicious origin” and therefore had to be denied accreditation to observe the election.

Though the ISIE did not explicitly name the groups, one of its commission members said last weekend that it sent formal allegations against two specific groups to Tunisia’s public prosecutor, making similar claims that they took funding from abroad.

The two organizations, I-Watch and Mourakiboun (which means "Observers” in Arabic) are not the first civil society groups to be pursued by authorities in Tunisia. Under President Kais Saied, non-governmental organizations have increasingly been targeted for their work, which spans from aid for migrants to human rights to local development efforts.

Saied has throughout his tenure accused civil society groups of having nefarious motives and being puppets of foreign countries critical of his style of governance. He has alleged that NGOs that receive funding from abroad intend to disrupt the North African nation’s social fabric and domestic politics.

Some of the groups targeted have increasingly criticized authorities’ decisions to arrest potential candidates and bar others from running over the past several months. Other groups, including I-Watch and Mourakiboun, have applied for accreditation to act as independent election observers for the Oct 6 vote.

In a statement, I-Watch blasted ISIE’s efforts to call its funding into question and called it "a desperate attempt to distract public opinion by hiding the violations it committed and its failure to implement law.”