Tunisia’s electoral commission on Wednesday announced it had approved 26 candidates and rejected 71 other applicants for next month’s presidential election, reported Reuters. A total of 97 applicants had applied to contest the country’s top office.
“Seventy-one nomination papers were rejected, including 51 on the grounds of lack of sponsorships and deposit guarantees and 14 for the lack of endorsements,” said Nabil Baffoun, president of the commission, during a press conference.
The commission said rejected presidential candidates can lodge appeals as the final list of the candidates will be published by the end of August.
The presidential election was originally set for November 17, but it was moved up to September 15 following the July 25 death of Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi. Essebsi was the first president to be democratically elected in Tunisia after the popular uprising of 2011 that overthrew former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The upcoming election will be the third free election in Tunisia since that uprising.
Among candidates approved for the presidential race are Prime Minister and head of the Long Live Tunisia Party, Youssef Chahed, Defence Minister Abdelkarim Zbidi, former premier Mehdi Jomaa, and the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party’s candidate Abdelfattah Mourou. Former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki and businessman and owner of the private channel Nessma TV, Nabil Karoui, will also join the race.
The two women candidates whose applications have been approved are Abir Moussi and Selma Elloumi Rekik, who heads Tunisia’s Ministry of Tourism and Handicrafts.
The electoral commission barred the application of Mounir Baatour, an openly gay lawyer because he failed to gather the required 10,000 signatures. Baatour’s bid was denounced by 18 associations campaigning for LGBTQ rights who say he does not represent them.
