Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi announced Saturday that he will not stand for re-election during presidential polls that are set for November.
"In all honesty, I don't think I will put myself forward," Essebsi, 92, told the Nidaa Tounes party which he founded in 2012, adding it was time "to open the door to the youth".
The Tunisian constitution adopted by parliament in 2014 gives him the right to run for two terms.
“I will say frankly that I do not want to present for a second term because Tunisia has a lot of talents,” Essebsi added.
His speech before thousands of members at the party's congress came several days after Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the 82-year-old ailing leader of neighboring Algeria, resigned in the face of huge protests ending two decades in power.
Essebsi, Tunisia's first democratically elected president, urged his party however to overcome bitter internal divisions and to bring Prime Minister Youssef Chahed back into the fold.
Essebsi's secularist Nidaa Tounes won the 2014 elections and formed a coalition with the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha that lasted four years before the two parties split.
Presidential elections are due on November 17, after parliamentary elections which have been scheduled for October 6.
Tunisia, whose 2011 revolt toppled longtime ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and sparked the Arab Spring uprisings, has been hailed as a model of democratization in the Arab world, but has faced economic woes and terror attacks.
None of the North African country's main political parties have yet announced their candidates for the presidential polls.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
