Out of jail, Tunisia presidential candidate wants vote delay

TUNIS, Tunisia – A candidate released from jail four days before the final round of Tunisia’s presidential election says that he wants voting delayed for a week so he can campaign.

Nabil Karoui, a media mogul who was jailed in August in a corruption investigation, said on Thursday, a day after being freed from prison, that a vote without a campaign “isn’t right.”

Karoui, 56, faces conservative law professor Kais Saied, 61, in Sunday’s runoff. Saied topped the first round of voting.

“The Tunisian people must look closely and compare and choose,” Karoui said in a statement outside the headquarters of his party, Qalb Tounes, or Heart of Tunisia, which puts fighting poverty at the top of its platform.

He noted that his party placed second in legislative elections last Sunday “despite prison.”