Following the death of its president Beji Caid Essebsi, the north-African country –Tunisia –will go to polls on 15th September to elect a new president. It is incidentally, the country’s third free and fair election since independence in 1956. The poll is a litmus test of the country’s stability and resilience as it struggles under the weight of a downward moving economy, ideological divides and internecine conflicts among ethnic groups.
There are 26 official candidates in the election fray with frontrunners including the incumbent prime minister Youssef Chahed, defense minister Abdelkarim Zbidi, former president Moncef Marzouki, and the interim parliamentary speaker Abdelfettah Mourou. The other set of contesters include jurist and media commentator Kais Saïed and lawyer Abir Moussi, leader of the anti-Islamist Free Destourian Party. There are also media barons and people prosecuted for tax frauds in the fray.
With the economy in the verge of a recession and has registered a negative growth of( -)1.917 % GDP growth in 2011, there is a growing dislike for the present political classes. Tunisia is on the cusp of economic reform and liberalization after decades of state-directed rule, which did not do any good to its economy. Undoubtedly, there is prudent planning to bail out the economy from its low or even negative levels of growth. People are giving credit to the country for adopting a reform and healthy democratic process that they feel would take the country to one of the progressive dispensations in the continent. Of course, it hinges on what type of administration the country would be ruled hence.
