Octogenarian tipped to win Tunisian presidential election

It seems unusual that an octogenarian politician who once said he would run for president if he was “still alive” would be tipped to lead a country whose youthful uprising touched off the Arab Spring.

However, Beji Caid Sebsi is seen as the frontrunner in Tunisia’s presidential election on November 23rd, just three days before his 88th birthday. His Nida Tunis party won October’s parliamentary elections with 39 per cent of the seats making it the largest bloc in the assembly.

One of 25 candidates in the race, Mr Sebsi is for his supporters a credible secular face against the Islamists of Nahda, who captured a plurality of seats in the first election after the 2011 revolution and led government for two years.

Also running is Moncef Marzouki, the interim president. A long-time opposition figure and veteran human rights activist, he may draw support from Islamists who see him as a bulwark against the return of the old regime.

Motley alliance

Mr Sebsi’s party, a motley alliance of the old guard, liberals and trade unionists, was formed expressly to counter the Islamists, whom voters have punished for the country’s economic slowdown during the transition and for their perceived initial laxity towards religious extremists.

“Tunisia’s political experiment has brought ruin and terrorism,” said Lamiaa, a voter in a middle-class district of Tunis after supporting Mr Sebsi’s party in last month’s poll.

“He has long years in government and experience. We want our country to succeed and not to have so many problems. I don’t want Nahda; Tunisia is a modern state.”

Mr Sebsi’s detractors fear the long-serving politician may embody the return of an authoritarian past and threaten the fledgling democracy.

“In my personal opinion, Nida Tunis control of both parliament and the presidency would be extremely worrying because it is the old regime with a new face,” said Sayed Ferjani, a Nahda official. “This would be the monopolisation of power altogether. I don’t think there is a worse scenario than this.”

Visibly authoritarian

Monica Marks, a political analyst, described Nida Tunis as “visibly authoritarian on the inside, and held together only by opposition to Nahda”.

Nahda, though still a significant force with only 16 seats fewer than Nida’s 85, has not fielded a candidate or supported any of the contenders, so as not to “fuel the polarisation in the country”, says Mr Ferjani.

Mr Sebsi has sought to reassure voters that if he wins, it will not mean a return to single-party rule. “We will not exclude any party. Just as we reject violence, we are against exclusion,” he said on Saturday.

Mr Sebsi’s appeal goes beyond his opposition to Islamists, say observers. He evokes a golden age under the country’s first-post independence president, Habib Bourguiba — a man venerated as a father of the nation whose support for education and the liberation of women, made Tunisia one of the most modern states in the region.

Mr Sebsi has tried to cast himself as an heir to Bourguiba, emphasising his commitment to women’s rights and “building a state for the 21st century”. – The Financial Times Limited 2014