Tunisia's Islamist movement Ennahda will not be fielding a candidate for the planned presidential election but could join the interim government if asked to do so, Ennahda's leader told AFP on Sunday.
"If we feel that the government satisfied the expectations of those who have led this revolution, then why not," Rached Ghannouchi said in an interview on the day he returned to Tunisia after more than 20 years in exile.
"I myself will not run for the presidency... We have no intention of fielding a candidate in the upcoming presidential election," he said.
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But the movement planned to take part in parliamentary elections, he added.
"At this sensitive juncture, the challenge is not to compete with other political forces but to (be)dismantling the apparatus of coercion and this requires a unity government, not replacing a one-party system with another," he said.
He also dismissed criticism and fears that his movement could seek to impose strict Islamic values in the north African state.
This was the fruit of "propaganda" put out by the ousted regime of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, he said.
"People must accept that there are different versions of political Islam," he said.
"We are much close to the AKP of Turkey than we can ever be to the Taliban or Bin Laden," he added, referring to Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party.
Asked specifically about his position on laws concerning women's rights in Tunisia including abortion, he said: "We are prepared to enter a dialogue on these issues... We refuse any type of coercion on people."
