On the day the electoral campaign for the upcoming Nov.23 presidential election kicked off, Ennahdha’s Shura (Consultative) council convened for a two-day meeting to ponder over the movement’s position as far as which candidate to support. Ennahdha movement that is not fielding a candidate, has called Tunisians, to come out in massive numbers in order to choose a president that would serve the “supreme national interest and protect the democratic process from encroachment and autocracy.” The movement’s decision as to which candidate it would back would be made public in the coming days. Meanwhile, presidential hopefuls such as Moncef Marzouki, Nejib Chebbi, and Mustapha Ben Jaâfar, to name a few, are competing to win Ennahdha’s blessing. With 30% of the vote in last week’s legislatives Ennahdha remains a key factor in the Tunisian political landscape. Mindful of this fact, Beji Caid Essebsi has been busy to establish Nodaa Tounes as a continuation of the late Habib Bourguiba’s Destourian independence movement. Thus, Essebsi aims to disengage with his recent political legacy as one of Ben Ali’s longest serving ministers and instead position himself as the heir to Bourguiba’s nationalist legacy. This effort was evident in Essebsi’s launch, last weekend, of his presidential electoral campaign from El Mounastir, Bourguiba’s hometown.
http://www.ennahdha.tn/
http://www.kapitalis.com/politique/25549
