TUNIS — The Executive Bureau of Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahda — which holds a plurality of 68 out of 217 parliament seats and is represented in the government — announced July 21 on Facebook that Rachid Ghanouchi, the movement's founder and thus far its only leader, will head its candidate list in the Tunis 1 district in legislative elections scheduled for Oct. 6. 

Parties had from July 22-29 to submit candidate lists to the Independent High Authority for Elections. Ennahda spokesman Emad al-Khamiri told Tunis Afrique Presse July 21 that the decision on Ghannouchi heading Ennahda's list had been made the day before at an extraordinary meeting of the party's Executive Bureau. He added that Ennahda's lists for other electoral districts will be made public at a later stage. The Shura Council is the authority charged by party rules with drafting candidate lists.

The upcoming election marks Ghannouchi's first candidacy for an official position since resuming political activity following the January 2011 revolution. Ghannouchi had gone into exile in Britain in 1989 following conflicts with Tunisian authorities and officials, returning in late January 2011, after the toppling of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. In August 1992, a military court had sentenced him to life in prison, in absentia, for allegedly plotting against the state. 

On the day Ennahda announced Ghannouchi's candidacy, Tasnim Gazbar requested on Facebook that the party remove her from its Tunis 1 candidate list, apparently in light of Ghannouchi's addition to it. She asserted that she would contest the election as an independent rather than with Ennahda because, she said, the movement calls for openness but does not actually believe in it.