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Tunisia Revises Voting Ban on Former Ruling Party

   VOA News  April 26, 2011
   Tunisian interim Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi addresses reporters
   during a press conference held at the presidential palace in Carthage,
   outside Tunis, March 7, 2011

Photo: AP

   Tunisian interim Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi addresses reporters
   during a press conference held at the presidential palace in Carthage,
   outside Tunis, March 7, 2011

   Tunisia's interim prime minister has announced a revised plan that will
   bar officials who served in the former ruling party from running or
   voting in July elections, after a broader ban drew protests.
   Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi announced the plan on Tuesday. It
   would prevent the senior members of the now dissolved RCD (Rally for
   Constitutional Democracy) party from taking part in the July 24 polling
   if they served in the party within the past decade.
   Earlier this month, hundreds of supporters of ousted President Zine
   el-Abidine Ben Ali's RCD party protested against a plan that would have
   barred officials who served at any point during Ben Ali's 23-year rule
   from voting.
   Former RCD members who took part in the protests argued the measure was
   unfair because they were all Tunisians.
   Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia after mass anti-government protests in
   January led to his resignation.
   In March interim president Fouad Mebazaa announced the July polling in
   which voters will elect a council that will rewrite the constitution
   and chart the country's post-revolution transition.

   Some information for this report was provided by Reuters.
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