Tunisia\u2019s Islamist Ennahda movement has nominated a Jew for the country\u2019s upcoming local election in May. <\/p>\n
Simon Selame, 56, from the central coast city of Monastir, will run as an independent in the May 6 polls.
\nSelame said he has the right to join the democratic race like every Tunisian citizen. <\/p>\n
Ennahda \u201cis a civilian party with Islamic identity that is open to modernism,” he said, adding that all Jews in Tunisia could participate in civic, social and political life as Tunisian citizens. <\/p>\n
Selame said he was born and raised in Monastir, where \u201csynagogue, church and mosque stay together.”<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though children of the town have different religions, our citizenship brings us together,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
If he emerges successful in the polls, Selame said he would seek to encourage the Jewish community to participate in the upcoming parliamentary election. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am sure that I would join the polls as an independent candidate from the Ennahda Movement. If a party other than Ennahda came to me with this offer, that would not be the answer,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI would not regret this experience, because Tunisia’s future is above everything.\u201d <\/p>\n
There are about 1,500 Jews living in Tunisia, particularly around Djerba Island in the south of the country. <\/p>\n
The local polls in May will be the first since a popular uprising unseated autocrat Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011. <\/p>\n
The deadline for candidates to apply to run for the polls will end on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tunisia\u2019s Islamist Ennahda movement has nominated a Jew for the country\u2019s upcoming local election in May. Simon Selame, 56, from the central coast city of Monastir, will run as an independent in the May 6 polls. Selame said he has the right to join the democratic race like every Tunisian citizen. Ennahda \u201cis a civilian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"better_featured_image":{"id":65354,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":580,"height":339,"file":"2018\/02\/ennahda.jpg","filesize":86580,"sizes":{},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1","keywords":[]}},"post":65352,"source_url":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/ennahda.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65352"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buletinonlines.net\/v7\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}