Nidaa Tounes says not to rule alone

The head of Nidaa Tounes (Call of Tunisia) movement, Beji Caid el Sebsi, said on Saturday that his movement would not rule Tunisia alone, even if it had won the majority of votes in the next presidential election.

“We will not rule Tunisia alone, even if the people give us a majority of votes in the election,” el Sebsi, his party’s presidential candidate, said.

“We will rule the country together with other political forces because national unity is important for the future,” he added during a public rally in the Tunisian capital.

El Sebsi’s party won a majority of votes in Tunisia’s parliamentary election last month. The votes gave the party 85 seats out of the 217 seats in the legislature, the first to be formed after the 2011 uprising that ousted long-serving president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.

Addressing Tunisians in the rally, el Sebsi said his party would form the next government after consulting with other political forces with the aim of preventing the marginalization of any of these forces.

He said in the October election, the Tunisian people had given his party a majority of votes and also punished those whom “they hated.”

He expressed confidence about his presidential election prospects, saying that he would retire and go home, if Tunisian voters did not give him a majority of votes.

The presidential election, which is expected to be held on November 23, will be the first to be held in this North African country after Ben Ali’s ouster.