Tunisia Defense Minister Abdelkarim Zbidi officially submitted on Wednesday his candidacy papers for the early presidential elections, scheduled to take place next September 15, as an independent.
Moreover, he announced that he would resign from the government.
Noteworthy, Zbidi, 69, who has the support of secular parties including Nidaa Tounes and Afek Tounes, is likely to emerge as one of the frontrunners in the election, which was called early after the death of president Beji Caid Essebsi last month, according to Reuters.
The presidential candidate, a technocrat and medical doctor by training, is considered by many to be above the party politics and infighting that has held back badly-needed economic reforms in Tunisia in recent years.
He looks set as the most serious rival to Prime Minister Youssef Chahed, who will run as a candidate for the liberal Tahya Tounes Party.
On Tuesday, Tunisia’s biggest political party Ennahda nominated its vice president Abdel Fattah Mourou as a candidate. He is the first presidential nominee from the moderate Islamist party.
After 2011 uprising, Zbidi was appointed defense minister until he quit in March 2013. In 2017, Chahed re-appointed him as defense minister.
Tunisia president controls foreign and defense policy, governing alongside a prime minister chosen by parliament who has authority over domestic affairs.
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