Tunsia's Essebsi, Pillar of Old Guard Seeks a Comeback

Beji Caid Essebsi, an 87-year-old pillar of Tunisian politics under the country's first president and his dictatorial successor, is making a comeback after his Nidaa Tounes won Sunday's parliamentary election.

But while Essebsi served as premier after the 2011 overthrow of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011 and led the country toward free elections, his detractors accuse this member of the erstwhile inner circle of wanting to take Tunisia back to the old ways.

Born on November 29, 1926 in Sidi Bou Said, a northern suburb of Tunis, the founder and chairman of Nidaa Tounes (Call of Tunisia), studied law in Paris and began practicing in 1952.

Following independence from France in 1956, he became an adviser to the country's founding father and first president, Habib Bourguiba, holding a number of key jobs under him and then Ben Ali.

Over the years, he was director general of the national police force and interior minister. He later held the defense portfolio before being made ambassador to France. After a subsequent posting as ambassador to Germany, he served as foreign minister.

He also served in parliament, holding the speakership in 1990 and 1991.

When Ben Ali stepped down on January 14, 2011 and fled into exile, prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi declared himself president. But just a day later, parliament speaker Fouad Mebazaa took the reins of power.

Ghannouchi remained premier for another six weeks, before Mebazaa called on Essebsi to replace him and head an interim government until elections for a constituent assembly were held.

Those polls, in December 2011, were won by the Islamist party Ennahda, and new interim president Moncef Marzouki appointed Ennahda's Hamadi Jabali to replace Essebsi.

Three years later, Nidaa Tounes emerged as the winner in parliamentary elections, with Ennahda coming in a close second.

With neither of the two parties having won an outright majority, political horse-trading has begun, and Essebsi will be a key player.

Essebsi has already announced his candidacy for a presidential election to be held on November 23, and is considered to be a front-runner.

With he himself having said he would stand in the election if he were "still alive," his critics question his advanced age. 

They also argue that he does not represent the country's youth, who spearheaded the revolt that drove Ben Ali from power.

Formed only two years ago, Nidaa Tounes rapidly emerged as the principal opposition to Ennahda, which it has accused of taking the country backwards.

Nidaa Tounes is a varied collection of business people, intellectuals, trade unionists and leftwing militants, as well as people aligned with the "ancient regime," all united in their opposition to the Islamists.

"We want a 21st century state, a progressive state," Essebsi has said. "What separates us from those people is fourteen centuries," an allusion to the birth of Islam in the 7th century.

But Essebsi has nonetheless acknowledged Ennahda as "part of Tunisia's political life," and his party does not rule out collaboration with it in governing the country.

Despite its election success, the party's detractors say that it lacks any real political program and exists merely as a vehicle to get Essebsi elected.

Whatever the case, Essebsi is a shrewd politician whose communications style is to mix Koranic verses with old Tunisian proverbs.

It is also difficult to corner him.

During the campaign he was taken to task for the way he responded to criticism by a female Islamist member of the constituent assembly.

"She's just a woman," he said, explaining later that he said that out of gallantry, not wanting to criticize a woman.

"No one can doubt the fact that I consider Tunisia's women to be the guarantors of the democratic process. And I am one of those who participated in the liberation of women by Bourguiba," who introduced the most liberal legislation on women's rights in the Arab world.

Essebsi is married and has two sons and two daughters.