Tunisia's Marzouki reaches out to Islamists (News Feature)

By Clare Byrne Feb 11, 2011, 9:33 GMT

Paris - One of Tunisia's main opposition figures and presidential candidates, Moncef Marzouki, confirmed Thursday evening he was in talks with the Islamist movement Al-Nahda about joining forces ahead of planned election.

Marzouki, who returned to Tunisia last month from exile in France, confirmed he had held talks with the moderate Islamist movement of Rashid Ghannouchi, among other political movements, 'including the left and far left.'

The leader of the centre-left Congress for the Republic, who was the first to throw his hat in the ring for president after the ouster of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, said he was open to working with any movement that was committed to democracy and human rights, including equality of the sexes.

Tunisians, a people with a proud secular tradition, are slated to vote by mid-July for a new president and parliament to replace Ben Ali's 23-year regime.

The popular Al-Nahda, which was banned under Ben Ali and whose leader returned recently from exile in London, has announced it will not contest the presidential elections.

'If the Islamists want to support me, why not,' the secular 65-year-old former head of the Tunisian Human Rights League told a press conference in Paris during a visit to the French capital.

Al-Nahda were 'Islamo-democratic' he said, drawing comparisons with Turkey's ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Ghannouchi was critical of the unity government put in place to govern the transition.

'The prime minister of the dictatorship is the prime minister of the democratic transition,' he said scornfully, referring to the reappointment of Ben Ali's premier Mohammed Ghannouchi.

He also sounded the alarm over what he called attempts by residual elements of Ben Ali's regime to sow chaos in the country.

The government blames Ben Ali allies for several incidents of unrest recently, including the infiltration by around 2,000 people of the interior ministry in Tunis on January 31.

'The remnants of the RCD (Ben Ali's former ruling party) and the security apparatus are continuing to try to sow chaos ... to make people miss the old days,' Marzouki said.

He did not, however, see any danger of the Tunisian revolution, which has inspired massive pro-democracy protests across the Arab world, being reversed.

No attempts to sow division were 'capable of taking us back to January 13,' he said.

Since Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on January 14, after a month-long uprising that killed at least 219 people, his regime has become the object of a purge.

Most of his ministers were forced to resign and his corrupt RCD party was dissolved.

Marzouki rejected concern that the purge might turn into a witch hunt, saying Tunisians were angry at a small corrupt elite and not ordinary members of the previous ruling party.

While those responsible for murder and other grave crimes should face justice, a South African-style truth and reconciliation commission could be established to deal with other offences carried out by Ben Ali's regime, he said.

The trained doctor was optimistic Tunisia's first free elections since independence from France in 1956 would be a success.

'We've already witnessed a miracle (the departure of Ben Ali). It can continue if we want.'

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