Tunisia's veteran politician Mourou contracts COVID-19

By Adel Thabti

TUNIS (AA) - Tunisia's veteran politician Abdelfattah Mourou has contracted coronavirus, the Ennahda Movement, the party he co-founded, has announced.

"We wish a speedy recovery to Abdelfattah Mourou," it said in a statement late Tuesday.

Former health minister Abdellatif Mekki also confirmed that Mourou had tested positive for the novel virus.

Mourou, 72, is a lawyer and one of the founders of the Ennahda Movement, which laid its foundations in 1969.

He has a good relationship with Rached Ghannouchi, the incumbent parliament speaker from the party, which currently holds 54 of 217 seats in the North African country.

In 1991, he resigned from the movement in the wake of a conflict with former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, but rejoined in July 2012.

He was deputy parliament speaker from 2014 to 2019, and also ran in the first round of the presidential election in September 2019. He came third, just behind independent candidate Kais Saied and liberal party Heart of Tunisia’s Nabil Karoui.

This May, he retired from politics.

*Writing by Mahmoud Barakat