Mohamed Ennaceur was sworn in as an interim president of Tunisia on Thursday morning at the presidential Carthage Palace.
He took the oath in the parliament on July 25 last year, before he legally assumed his tasks at the Carthage Palace since the 29th of the same month.
He would occupy this position until holding premature elections in a minimum of 45 days and a maximum of 90 days, as stipulated by chapters 84, 85, and 86 of the Tunisian constitution.
The Independent High Authority for Elections had determined Sep. 15 a date for the first cycle of the presidential elections to be held exceptionally due to the death of President Beji Caid Essebsi in July.
In the same context, Al Badil Ettounsi party is running for future presidential elections via its candidate Mehdi Jomaa -- some party officials affirmed garnering 30,000 recommendations in addition to the signatures of a number of deputies.
Reliable sources from Al Badil Ettounsi revealed that Jomaa has started holding talks with several political parties, organizations and national figures for consultations regarding the electoral program.
Candidacies may be submitted starting early Friday until the ninth of the same month. Observers see that the competition would narrow down to Prime Minister Youssef Chahed, Defense Minister Abdul Karim al-Zubaidi, former Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa and Hammadi Jabali.
In another context, some candidacies are seeking to benefit from the electoral weight of the Ennahda Party, which hasn’t settled on whether to nominate its own candidate or back a candidate whose political choices are alike.
As for Nidaa Tounes, spokesman Manji al-Harbawi announced that the party is still considering the possibility of backing an independent candidate from outside the party or nominating a candidate from inside.
Notably, the political weight of Nidaa Tounes has dropped despite its victory in the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2014. This is due to political internal disputes in the past years.
