It may be a first in the Arab world, but Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi announced on Saturday that he would not be seeking re-election. Despite the fact that Tunisia's 2014 Constitution gives Essebsi the right to run for a second term and there have been calls for him to re-run, the president said it was time to “open the door to youth” even though some have demanded that “the people want Essebsi to run again.” Insisting someone younger should take charge, the 92-year-old head of state told a meeting of his ruling Nidaa Tounes Party on the 19th anniversary of the death of Tunisian independence leader Habib Bourguiba that “I will say frankly that I do not want to run for a second term because Tunisia has a lot of younger talent.” Tunisia's parliamentary and presidential elections will take place on 6 October and 17 November, respectively. Some 2,000 members of Nidaa Tounes are electing members of the party's 217-member National Assembly this weekend charged with electing its political bureau. The party has been mired in conflict over recent months, with rivalry brewing between Hafez Essebsi, the president's son and party leader, and prime minister Youssef Chahed. The latter split from Nidaa Tounes to form the Long Live Tunisia Party, now the second power in parliament after the Ennahda Party, the political wing of Tunisia's Muslim Brotherhood, collecting more influence than the ruling bloc. At a meeting in the Tunisian city of Monastir this week, Beji Caid Essebsi urged party members to overcome internal divisions and re-instate Chahed as a member. The president's initiative to lift the prime minister's expulsion was met with silence on the part of his rival, however. “Nidaa Tounes should bring together all the moderate elements in Tunisia,” Essebsi said. The Tunisian leader forfeited his right to run for a second term because his old age is an obstacle to resuming his presidential responsibilities. He also may have learned from the mistakes of those who cling to authority despite old age, including Bourguiba who was toppled at the hands of former Tunisian president Zein Al-Abidine bin Ali, himself overthrown in the country's 2011 Revolution, and former Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who resigned after six-week protests against his running for a fifth term in office. Essebsi has also made political errors during his tenure, among them allowing his son to take over the Nidaa Tounes Party, said Hassan Al-Ramsi, a Tunisian political scientist. “But Essebsi supported the formation of a consensus government with his opponents from the Ennahda Party, saving the country from a conflict that could have been difficult to untangle,” Al-Ramsi added. “The Tunisian president is loyal to the principles of the republic established by Bourguiba,” he said. “Essebsi wants to leave a political legacy by which he will be remembered by the coming generations. He has rejected any clinging to authority.” None of Tunisia's other political parties has put forward a presidential contender, due to the complicated political scene the country is witnessing. The only real candidates are Nidaa Tounes' Hafez Essebsi and his opponent Chahed who enjoys some support from Ennahda and rivalry with the Tunisian General Labour Union, better known by its French acronym the UGTT. Hafez's run for the presidency will be risky and may threaten his current position if he does not manage to win some support from Ennahda or the UGTT, the two most powerful blocs in Tunisia. If Hafez and Chahed decide to contest the presidential elections, the UGTT will stand behind Nidaa Tounes and Ennahda behind Chahed, making the race even more heated. Also last week, the UGTT's transport branch cancelled a strike planned from 1 to 4 April after reaching an accord with the Ministry of Transportation. The strike was one in a series the union has used to pressure Chahed's government, increasing the challenges to the country's economic reform plans. Tunisia's other political parties are faring little better, with most of them also engaged in bitter divisions, as was obvious when Essebsi presented his revisions to the country's civil code. While Tunisia's liberal and progressive forces have pushed to follow in Bourguiba's path on such matters, they offered Essebsi no support. At the other end of political spectrum, the conservative parties are pressuring Ennahda to favour them if its presidential contender wins the race. Even the UGTT will not be supporting Hafez Essebsi for nothing in return, and it is pressing for plans not in line with the demands of the International Monetary Fund, to which Essebsi has given his implicit approval. Not only is Tunisia's political scene tangled up, however, as the economy has also been hard hit due to sharp declines in revenues from tourism and foreign investment. Unemployment among young people has reached 20 per cent, according to International Labour Organisation figures, and more and more young Tunisians are risking their lives in illegal immigration to the nearby Italian coast. The conflict in Libya has exposed Tunisia to the risk of human-trafficking rings and terrorism, prompting President Essebsi to extend the state of emergency in the country. The relative success of Tunisia in carrying out democratic reforms since the 2011 Revolution may also have rendered the situation more complicated. “In emerging democracies, society is customarily divided, increasing the difficulty of taking important economic decisions,” said Al-Ramsi. “The government cannot lift subsidies without losing the parliamentary or presidential elections, for example, which would bring the economic reform programme to a halt.”
