TUNIS – Nidaa Tounes leader Raouf Khammassi told Radio Diwan FM on Jan. 22 that his party backs 92-year-old Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi as its candidate in elections scheduled for December. Khammassi stressed that Essebsi is the movement’s only candidate, asserting, “There is no person capable of competing against him in the upcoming presidential elections. He has every chance to win.”
Essebsi won Tunisia's first post-revolution elections, held in December 2014, garnering 55.68% of the vote, while his opponent, Moncef Marzouki, received 44.32%. In a Sept. 24 interview with El Hiwar El Tounsi, Essebsi declined to indicate whether he planned to run for a second five-year term, stating, “It is a right guaranteed by the constitution, but we’ll talk about it when we get there.” He further remarked that age is not an obstacle for him, though it might be for his opponents.
