Candidates for the presidency of Tunisia began campaigning on Monday for elections scheduled to take place on September 15. The vote was moved up after the July death of president Beji Caid Essebsi, the country’s first freely elected leader since the 2011 ousting of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali during the so-called Arab Spring. The 26 candidates include two women as well as Prime Minister Youssef Chahed and Abdelfattah Mourou, vice president of Ennahdha, a moderate Islamist party that was banned before Ben Ali’s downfall. Earlier in the day, a police commander and three Islamic extremists were killed during a clash in Haidra, a remote town near the border with Algeria. In an interview last week, Chahed told the Reuters news agency that the country was still threatened by extremist groups, including Islamic State, which has been active in North Africa for several years. In addition to terrorism, Tunisia’s economy has been faltering due to bureaucracy, debt and rising prices.
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