Main Contenders for Tunisia President
Twenty-seven candidates are standing for president in Tunisia on November 23, including the outgoing head of state, a football club chief, former ministers and a sole woman.
The contenders include:
- Moncef Marzouki
The outgoing president was elected by the Constituent Assembly in 2011. A rights activist exiled under deposed president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Marzouki allied himself with the Islamist Ennahda party. He is seen as having prevented the country being split between secular and Islamist camps, but critics accuse him of having sacrificed his principles.
- Beji Caid Essebsi
Leader of the main anti-Islamist party Nidaa Tounes which won the October 26 general election. At 87, he is the oldest presidential candidate. He was a minister under Habib Bourguiba, the father of Tunisian independence, and briefly headed parliament under Ben Ali. The prime minister immediately after the revolution, Essebsi organised the first free election in Tunisian history in October 2011, won by Ennahda.
- Slim Riahi
An entrepreneur who leads the Free Patriotic Union (UPL), Riahi also owns Club Africain, one of the two major football teams in Tunis. Running a populist campaign, UPL came third in the parliamentary election. The origins of his fortune remain unknown. He is believed to have had links with the family of deposed Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi.
- Hamma Hammami
A leftist figurehead and virulent Ben Ali critic who chose to stay in Tunisia rather than go into exile. He was jailed under the former regime, and his lawyer wife Radhia Nasraoui is a prominent anti-torture activist. His Popular Front party came fourth in last month's election.
- Kalthoum Kannou
A magistrate and the only woman presidential candidate, Kannou is a champion of judicial independence. She was also an opponent of Ben Ali's regime which tried to silence her. After the dictator fled in January 2011, she briefly headed the Association of Tunisian Judges.
- Kamel Morjane
Ben Ali's last foreign minister and one of six ousted regime officials standing as a candidate. After the revolution, he apologized for serving under Ben Ali and founded his own party, Al-Moubadara (the Initiative), which claims to follow the Bourguiba line. Al-Moubadara won three parliamentary seats on October 26.
Source: Agence France Presse
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