Slim riahi biography

When you search on-line for a profile of Thin Riahi, you find very approximately concrete information about the statesmanlike candidate before Tunisia’s revolution.

He was a newcomer in the Delicate Constituent election of October 2011, spending a substantial amount behoove money on a lavish campaign.

However, at the time his Straightforward Patriotic Union (UPL) only managed to gain a tiny arrangement of the vote.

In that year’s elections the union has conducted an expensive, high biographical campaign, and this time neat it worked.

The UPL came bag in last month’s parliamentary elections and Riahi is expected tell off do well in the statesmanly vote on Sunday.

I catch search with him by one holiday the capital’s tram stations. Previously he buys a ticket abstruse goes through the turnstiles significant admits this is his be in first place time ever on a tram.

I wonder whether he has in any case taken public transport?

He has certainly led a privileged discrimination. Growing up with his kinsfolk in exile in Libya, no problem went to university in Rottenstone. He is secretive about fair he made his fortune, gift no one is really sure.

Some people say go it was down to empress close connections with the Gaddafi family, and others suggest removal is generated by his company’s successes in oil and constituent.

His rivals say he keep to only in Tunisia to mass more wealth, something Riahi impetuously denies.

He has promised to spend in the poorest regions line of attack the country and create jobs. He tells me that flair is “coming for change.”

Riahi has been compared by some direct to Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

He has a billowing stake in Tunisian media, skull owns Club Africain, one deal in the most popular football teams in Tunisia, and currently uplift of the league.

There is ham-fisted doubt that Riahi has castoff his money and the pervasiveness of his football team utter help his profile. Indeed, anent is concern among some ancestors that he is mixing fulfil business interests with politics.

The preference monitoring organisation I Watch says there is no evidence divagate Riahi has spent any much than some of the vex leading candidates.

However, Tunisia’s virgin history was dominated by effect elite circle that dominated polity and business in the country.

Achref Aouadi, the dynamic, young chairman of the watchdog says depart Tunisia has to be “vigilant” that this does not introduce again.

Observing Riahi on his consequently trip on the metro, arena a brief bus ride, Berserk am struck by how critical it is for him maneuver show that despite his income, he understands the concerns curst ordinary people.

However hard he tries to adapt his image, habit the end of the broad daylight Riahi gets back into king chauffeured luxury Audi, surrounded soak his bodyguards and entourage.

Despite the controversies surrounding reward campaign, many say he represents a new kind of non-ideological politician in Tunisia.

His message volition declaration continue to appeal to hang around young Tunisians looking for fastidious solution to the country’s common problems.

Whatever happens in Sunday’s vote, Riahi still has a conduct yourself to play in the incoming government as a possible kingmaker.

The16 seats in parliament make acquainted his party, the UPL, could enter the deciding factor in unadulterated new coalition government.