Every day, Didier François deals with an international topic.
The presidential campaign was officially launched yesterday in Tunisia with the electoral commission which unveiled the list of candidates who obtained the necessary number of signatures to run. They are 26 to be able to seek the replacement of Béji Caïd Essebsi, died last July 25 at the age of 92 years.
24 men and two women, it's a bit much but finally, it's still better than a single candidate what has been the lot of Tunisia since its independence in March 1956. Until the revolt of December 2010 that has led to the fall of the dictator Ben Ali, triggering this huge protest movement that then spread to Libya, Egypt, Syria or the Persian Gulf. In the Arab world finally and that we called the Arab Spring. But what is very interesting in the Tunisian case is that first it is the only country where we avoided the bloodshed and it is not nothing. Then, despite difficulties, tensions and imperfections, a real process of democratization settled in Tunisia after eight years of trial and error. And all in all, this presidential election (which the first round must be held on September 15) is the best demonstration. A completely transparent process was opened the day after the sudden death of the head of state, a highly respected historical figure. 26 candidates will be able to compete, some are fanciful and others more serious but all represent the true diversity of the political opinions of the country.
With this competition always between lay people and Islamists?
This is one of the factors of choice that remains very important in Tunisia since the end of the dictatorship. But here too, we have a real Tunisian specificity to the extent that, even within these two large families, we find options that have nothing to do with the extremely homogeneous (or even monolithic) offers existing in the rest of the world. Arab World. The Islamist party Ennahda will for the first time present a candidate for the presidency. Abdelfattah Mourou (71) who is one of the founders of the movement and the acting president of Parliament. Surprisingly, he will have a rival from the ranks of his party, Hamadi Jebali (former secretary general of Ennahda) who was the head of government after the revolution. Which shows quite well that strong divergences cross the Islamist camp. In the same way that the secular trend is far from unified with the number of strong candidates, the current Prime Minister and Prime Minister Youssef Chahed (43 years) whose Tahya Tounes party (launched earlier this year) represents the second force in Parliament behind Ennahda. He will have to count with a very serious opponent, Abdelkarim Zbidi. A 69-year-old doctor who is a bit like the heir to the late President Essebsi and who is above all the Defense Minister with a security record rather to his advantage because Tunisia is resistant to terrorism despite jihadist cuts very active on its two borders, Libyan and Algerian. The game therefore remains relatively open and the richness of the electoral choice and the reality of the debates are elements to be credited to the political maturity of Tunisians.