Former Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi dropped a political bombshell when he announced his candidacy for the presidential elections. Being barred from running for president under the impending laws, Essebsi is shown by opinion poll centers as the most favorable candidate to Tunisians, thus mixing up all political cards.

Former Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi dropped a political bombshell when he announced his candidacy for the presidential elections. Being barred from running for president under the impending laws, Essebsi is shown by opinion poll centers as the most favorable candidate to Tunisians, thus mixing up all political cards.

The old fox of Tunisian politics, Essebsi, who exhausted the ruling Troika and even the majority of the opposition, appeared Monday night on a private channel and declared his desire to run for president in the upcoming elections scheduled before the end of this year.

Essebsi’s announcement is a calculated and well-timed preemptive strike meant to achieve several goals, the first of which is to embarrass his opponents and allies alike. However, he surely created a new approach to presidential races as many high-profile names may not be able to keep up with him.

Too Old To Run

Eighty-three year-old Essebsi knows very well that his age as well as restrictive laws may prevent him from coming to power, but what many are not aware of is that his candidacy is an end in and of itself. To him, taking the position is not important because he was already in the highest places of power for many years, and in positions not less important than the one occupied by the current interim President Moncef Marzouki. A count of the birds hit by Essebsi with one stone explains the secret behind that declaration, its timing and purpose.

Essebsi’s first knockout has landed on the revolution fortification bill – used by the ruling Troika as a “stick” tactic to bully its opponents – before being presented to the Constituent Assembly.

Essebsi embarrassed the ruling Troika at every level; he embarrassed it before its supporters when he sat with it on the national dialogue table before pulling out very quickly as if only wanted to show Tunisians that it was the Troika leaders who wanted to sit with him and seek his opinion. Essebsi also embarrassed it before the world because even if the Troika managed to pass the isolation bill, this would show the world that the Troika has turned into a repressive and autocratic authority and that the bill has been designed to unjustly drive him out of the political scene.

The second gain achieved by Essebsi is that he has had the final word inside the Union for Tunisia Coalition, which consists of Essebsi’s party, Call For Tunisia, and four other parties which all have candidates running for presidency, especially Ahmed Najib Chebbi, the historical candidate to enter Carthage Palace.

By declaring his candidacy, Essebsi has set the record straight and made it clear for everyone that whoever joined the coalition in order to be elected as a president is only dreaming.

The third gain achieved by Essebsi is purely party-oriented given that he has ended the struggle inside his young party and raised a stop sign in the face of any political current hoping to nominate some of its leaders to run for president. Essebsi has managed to maintain the unity of Call For Tunisia and thwarted all efforts aimed at dividing or weakening it.

An open dare

Practically speaking, Essebsi chose this time to declare his candidacy to set the record straight, bring the covert presidential race war between him and the Troika to light, making it an open competition, and to move the electoral arena from the corridors and salons of political parties to the street.

This declaration has not come out of thin air, but has been the culmination of an organized campaign launched by Call For Tunisia to explore Tunisians’ opinions, whether through opinion polls which have regularly showed that voters are in favor of Essebsi and his party, or through public gatherings organized by Essebsi and his party in Gafsa, Tunis, Monastir and Nabeul, which witnessed large turnout compared to those organized for example by Ennahda Movement.

Essebsi has also intensified his media campaign, held more meetings, opened new branches and offices, moved to an offensive attitude against the Revolution Protection Leagues, and managed to defeat Ennahda in places until recently considered their strongholds.

This party, public and media campaign culminated in Essebsi’s declaration of his candidacy for the presidential elections, a step seen by many observers as a masterstroke that has shaken the balance of the ruling Troika and hamstrung its effective action.

Essebsi thus has been placed by everyone, especially his opponents, within a new reality in which all laws, including the revolution fortification bill, election law and isolation bill, seem nothing but instruments designed to target him personally as a candidate for the presidency and deliberately exclude him as a political opponent. As a result, Essebsi has succeeded in striping these laws of their content before the eyes of local and world opinion alike.

Essebsi may have prematurely made his declaration, but he has surely gone ahead of his opponents and made their bargaining chips worthless. He has also confused his allies who long thought that he would award them the highest position in the country if they allied with him.

Essebsi has undoubtedly succeeded in restoring the traditional system of competition between political opponents after years of sinking in trials, abstraction and sloganeering. He has also forced the government, in theory at least, to fulfill its promises, honor the date of the next elections and leave the period of hesitation and time gaining behind for good.