Divergent views about Ennahda’s candidate for Tunisian presidential elections; final decision on Tuesday

The chairperson of the Shura Council of Ennahda Movement, Abdelkarim Harouni, said that the movement’s Shura Council has not yet decided on its candidate for the upcoming presidential elections scheduled for mid-September.

“The movement’s Shura Council comprises different opinions, divided between defenders of nominating a personality from within the movement and those who believe it is necessary to support a candidate from outside it,” Harouni explained in a news conference held on Sunday at the movement’s headquarters in the capital Tunis.

He added that “the Shura Council is still in session, and we decided to meet on Tuesday, to take the final decision.”

Harouni revealed in the same context that “the result of the vote inside the movement’s Shura Council was in favour of the opinion advocating the nomination of a personality from inside the movement to run for the early presidential elections, by 45 votes, compared to 44 votes calling for the nomination of a figure from outside the movement.”

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“The issue has not yet been resolved because the movement’s rules say that a majority of 50 votes is needed, and this has not happened,” Harouni considered.

He pointed to the existence of several proposals “of names of candidates for the presidential election from inside the movement, and there are those who defended the search for a consensual person from outside the movement, which would be qualified to be at the level of the presidency of the republic.”

The 30th round of meetings of the movement’s Shura Council has been ongoing since Saturday in the city of Hammamet (northeast) to discuss and take a final decision on the personality that the movement will nominate for the presidential elections.

On Tuesday, the head of Independent High Authority for Elections, Nabil Baffoun, announced the calendar for the early presidential elections scheduled for 15 September.

Last Friday, the candidacy application phase, which will continue until next Friday, has been launched before the authority announced the final list of the primarily accepted candidates on 14 August.