The winner in the first round of Tunisia's presidential elections held last weekend was Beji Caid Essebsi, who managed to come ahead of his nearest rival, Moncef Marzouki, by a comfortable margin of 10 per cent of the vote. Among Tunisians, the octogenarian Essebsi, 88, is commonly referred to as “Bajboj”. When asked the reason for the nickname, Mahmoud Ramadan, a leading figure in Nidaa Tounes, Essebsi's political party, said that it was a term of endearment. The nickname surfaced two years ago, after Essebsi formed his eclectic party with its secular and modernist agenda, this also managing to outperform the country's Islamist movement, Ennahda, in the recent parliamentary elections. Even in remote villages, people often refer to the country's likely next president as Bajboj. Perhaps Tunisians are in the habit of giving nicknames to their favourite leaders, though Ramadan said that the country's first president Habib Bourguiba, the man whose legacy Essebsi hopes to revive, was not given a nickname. “Bourguiba was likeable, but he was also rather distant,” Ramadan said. For Nidaa Tounes, the unlikely business of turning an octogenarian into a popular leader has gone well so far, and Essebsi, a seasoned politician who had earlier absented himself from public life for nearly two decades, seems now to be at the top of his game. Across Tunisia, his supporters see him as a blend of a father figure and the man next door, someone to be trusted and relied on in time of need. After three years of a sometimes turbulent political transition, the country is in need of a respite, which the seasoned politician has promised to deliver. Essebsi comes from a well-heeled family with connections to the country's administrative and political class. He can cite members of his family who worked closely with the dynasty of the Husaynid Beys who ruled Tunisia in Ottoman times and remained influential even during the French occupation. It was only with the 1957 independence of the country that the dynasty receded from the fore, although it remained influential in business and the bureaucracy. The name Caid Essebsi used to refer to the “master of the smoking pipe”, a ceremonial court position whose occupant once had access to the country's Ottoman viceroy, or bey. Born in the elegant neighbourhood of Sidi Bou Said in the capital Tunis, Essebsi can count on the support of the country's cosmopolitan and largely westernised coastal community. Nidaa Tounes swept to victory in these areas, where nearly 55 per cent of the population reside. Essebsi attended the Sadiqia, a prestigious school that boasts among its graduates former president Bourguiba and former Arab League secretary-general Chedli Klibi. He did not receive a religious education, but his ability to back his arguments with citations from the Quran and the Prophet's sayings outstrips that of Rached Al-Ghannouchi, the leader of Ennahda, Tunisia's Islamist movement. With unmatched ease, Essebsi also often peppers his speeches with Arabic poetry and local proverbs, offering his listeners a blend of wit and intellectual arguments that is easy to grasp and sometimes humorous. He attended university in Paris, where he studied law, and later on established a successful practice in Tunis. During his retirement from politics, he focused on running his legal firm. Although Essebsi joined the Neo-Destour Party of Habib Bourguiba in the early 1950s, he is not usually regarded as one of the heroes of independence, as unlike the other leaders of the independence movement he was never imprisoned or exiled. He held several positions at Tunisia's Ministry of Interior before being appointed to head it in 1965. His experience in running this ministry has made many believe he can restore law and order to Tunisia, though his critics prefer to focus on alleged human rights violations committed during his time in office. Some have even demanded Essebsi's being put on trial for his alleged involvement in the torture or arrest of Bourguiba's opponents. Tarek Chandoul, 30, of the Nasserist-leaning People's Movement which has three members of parliament, is uncomfortable with Essebsi's past “People have short memories, and transitional justice is in short supply, even after the revolution,” he said. Essebsi has also been linked to the repression of the supporters of Bourguiba's rival, Salah Ben Youssef, who was assassinated in Germany in 1961, though historian Jaloul Azzouna, 70, does not think the octogenarian politician was particularly heavy-handed. “He took over the Interior Ministry after the repression took place. In fact, his years in the ministry were the least marred by human rights violations compared with his predecessors and successors,” Azzouna said. After a stint as defence minister in 1969, Essebsi became Tunisia's ambassador to Paris, a job he held for two years. Soon afterwards he had a falling out with Bourguiba and was dismissed from the ranks of the ruling party in 1974, joining the Movement of Socialist Democrats led by Ahmed Mestiri. Azzouna, who knew Essebsi when he was studying in Paris, thinks of him as a moderate reformer. “Beji is not one to break with the regime. He is a man for reform from within the ruling party, unlike Mestiri. He doesn't go for broke,” he said. Having mended his relations with Bourguiba, Essebsi then served as Tunisia's foreign minister between 1981 and 1986. In November 1987, when Essebsi was serving as Tunisia's ambassador in Bonn, former president Zein Al-Abidine Ben Ali ousted Bourguiba, with Essebsi backing the new leader without delay. In 1990, he served as speaker of the first parliament under Ben Ali's rule, retiring two years later for nearly 20 years from Tunisian politics. Some say this was a sign of his disappointment in Ben Ali, who failed to implement the reforms he had promised after Bourguiba's ouster. Riyad Al-Sidawi, director of the Arab Centre for Political and Social Studies in Geneva, said that Essebsi's disappearance from political life was a result of Ben Ali's policy of keeping charismatic people out of the limelight. “Ben Ali used to push away any political figure that might have had public appeal, whether from the right or left. This was because he himself had no charisma to mention, and couldn't even speak off the cuff convincingly,” he said. Back in political life after the 2011 Revolution, Essebsi was appointed prime minister during the country's transitional phase. By that time, nearly 40 per cent of young Tunisians had been born after he had first retired from politics. “The only thing we knew about him was that he had been a minister under Bourguiba,” said Mahdi Boukara, a student. In an interview three years ago, Essebsi seemed worried about Ennahda. “They will rule, but only God knows what is on their minds,” he said. He handed power to Ennahda in December 2011, but within less than a year the so-called troika coalition government led by that Islamist movement had collapsed. It was then that Essebsi decided to form Nidaa Tounes, an eclectic party comprising human rights activists, leftists, liberals, and businessmen, most of whom are partial to the modernist and secular legacy of the Bourguiba era. Over the past two years, he has succeeded in turning his new-born party into a rival force to Ennahda and its Islamist allies. However, despite his efforts as polling in the first round of the presidential elections got underway at the weekend it seemed that the young in particular had little enthusiasm for the elections. But at least some of them were willing to take their chances on Essebsi. Having voted for “Bajboj,” Reem Mazoughi, 25, emerged from the polling station in Bab Al-Khadra, a working class area in Tunis, and said that “he has presence and expertise and is from the Bourguiba era. We have to hope for the best” with him. However, Chandoul, disagreed, claiming that Nidaa Tounes had no strategy for resolving the country's problems. “The people were disappointed in Ennahda, which is why they voted for Essebsi and his party. This support is not going to last,” he said. The one thing Reem and Chandoul agreed on was that their country was not going to slip into authoritarianism once again. “Now we have freedom of expression, we will not give it up,” Reem said.
