Tunisia: UGTT to boycott legislative & presidential elections

Tunisia’s powerful workers union, UGTT, Thursday said it will take part neither in the legislative nor in the presidential elections planned for next fall.

Noureddine Taboubi, Secretary General of the powerful union, told a local radio that the union decided it will not field or back any party or independent candidacy for the legislative elections scheduled for early October and the presidential polls slated for the following month.

The organization however hopes to become a powerful force of proposal to political parties, national organizations and civil society groups.

Though refusing to run for the elections, the UGTT, however, will allow its members at grass root level to run for the two elections on their own account, not on behalf of the national trade union, Taboubi said.