Confusion hits Tunisia streets, MB’s Ennahda joins presidential race with four candidates

Mahmoud Mohammadi

Tunisia’s electoral commission has said it had approved 26 candidates including two women for next month’s presidential election and had rejected 71 other applicants.

Among candidates approved for the presidential race are four candidates by Ennahda party, the Muslim Brotherhood political arm in Tunisia, namely the vice-president of Ennahda Abdel Fattah Mourou, former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki, constitutional law professor Kais Saied and former prime minister Hamadi Jebali.

The Sept. 15 vote follows the death at age 92 last month of Beji Caid Essebsi, the first president to be democratically elected in Tunisia after the popular uprising of 2011.

This marks the third free election in Tunisia since that uprising.

The candidate must be recommended by 10 deputies in the People’s Assembly, forty heads of the elected local assemblies, or by 10,000 voters distributed across at least ten constituencies, at least 500 in each constituency.

Political activist Maher al-Sheikhawy said Muslim Brotherhood’s Ennahda is joining the presidential race with all its power and will likely win Tunisia’s presidency.

He further pointed out that Muslim Brotherhood figures do not assure Tunisian citizens, stressing that Tunisia does not want to repeat the Muslim Brotherhood experience in ruling once again.

On the Ennahda candidates’ list of upcoming elections, Dr. Tarek Fahmy, a professor of political science at Cairo University, said in a statement to the Reference that the Muslim Brotherhood cannot afford to lose ground and stature in another country.

Fahmi added that the Nahdha movement did not agree with its Shura Council on one candidate so far.

He pointed out that the decision may not be issued within the Council or the movement in Tunisia, but could be issued by the international organization of the Brotherhood group.

Tunisia’s president controls foreign and defense policy, governing alongside a prime minister chosen by parliament who has authority over domestic affairs.