Tunis – Mohammed Saleh
The Head of the Islamic al-Nahda Movement in Tunisia, Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi, announced that Sheikh Abdel Fattah Moro will be the movement’s candidate for the next presidential election. The movement with the majority of seats (89 out of 217) in the National Constituent Assembly insisted that Tunisia be ruled by the Parliament, while almost all of the other parties rejected this, suggesting a system that combines the parliamentary and the presidential schemes. By nominating a second man in the movement means that the al-Nahda Movement has accepted the proposal of the majority of the representative parties in the National Constituent Assembly. Sheikh Moro is accepted by most of the political parties and civil associations because of his balanced Islamic orientation and is quite popular amongst the people. Ghannouchi stated that Tunisia’s Call (the party of Baji Qaed Sebsi) is the new look of the former bloc, which was the dissolved party of the overthrown president. He stressed that the al-Nahda Movement is like any other movement, whose popularity increases and decreases according to its performance and efficiency. Ghannouchi also declared how some journalists are against the al-Nahda Movement and thus were not being objective and professional. Consequently, they have moved from praising the overthrown president to detesting the al-Nahda Movement and the legitimate government.