EDGING cautiously into the future in a gloomy region, many Tunisians are tempted to look back in pride to Habib Bourguiba, the country’s first post-independence president. Although he was hardly a democrat, Bourguiba’s 30 years at the helm were free from the extravagant corruption of his successor, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who was ousted in the revolution of January 2011. Bourguiba’s legacy includes a strong bureaucracy where civil servants work for universal literacy, women’s rights and the separation of religion and state. Many Tunisians reckon the sense of citizenship he instilled helped their country become the only Arab spring success story, far removed from internecine strife seen in neighbouring Libya.

Foremost among those looking to the founding father for inspiration is the veteran politician, Beji Caid Sebsi. A French-educated lawyer like Bourguiba, Mr Caid Sebsi served under him three times as a minister. A Bourguiban stance on keeping religion out of state institutions helped Mr Caid Sebsi’s young secularist party, Nidaa Tounes (“Tunisian Call”), to a surprise win in parliamentary elections on October 26th, unseating the Islamists of Nahda (“Awakening”), who held the largest block in the constituent assembly, the precursor to the new parliament.

Polls put Mr Caid Sebsi as the frontrunner in the presidential election on November 23rd. He launched his campaign on November 2nd outside the ostentatious mausoleum that houses Bourguiba’s remains. Loudspeakers played a decades-old ode to Bourguiba as the “cherished za’im” (leader)—a word evoking the patriarchal strongman of Arab politics. Punching the air, Mr Caid Sebsi, 87, promised to “restore the prestige of the state” and said Tunisia needed to close its widening economic gap with developed nations.

Mr Caid Sebsi has revised Bourguibism, though, since he explicitly recognises Nahda as a legitimate political player. The coalition government that Nahda headed for two years in 2011-2013 broke the taboo inherited from the Bourguiba and Ben Ali eras that Islamists must on no account hold political power, not even through elections. Tunisia belongs to “all sensibilities and all backgrounds,” Mr Caid Sebsi said at the rally. His party has not ruled out a deal that could see Nahda being awarded some ministries in a coalition government.

Many Tunisian voters reckon Mr Caid Sebsi now has democratic credentials. He was persuaded out of retirement to head an interim government as prime minister after the 2011 revolution, before ceding power to the Islamist-led government at the end of that year. However some worry that if Mr Caid Sebsi wins the presidency and his party also has the prime minister’s office as well as a parliamentary majority, an authoritarian style of government could re-emerge, despite a new constitution intended to guard against that.

There is also the thorny issue of Mr Caid Sebsi’s view of Tunisia’s plans for “transitional justice”, in which Tunisians are for the first time to give testimony about torture, disappearances and other human rights abuses under the two authoritarian presidents since independence. The four-year process will also decide which individuals will face trial for flagrant corruption, electoral fraud or rights abuses. Mr Caid Sebsi wants to amend the transitional-justice law that was approved by the constituent assembly finding it unacceptable that it is retroactive. As it stands, the law covers actions carried out in the 1960s, when Bourguiba repressed dissent harshly. Mr Caid Sebsi headed his interior ministry for part of this time, from 1965-69.

A handful of smaller parties are hoping to unite around a candidate to take on Mr Caid Sebsi. The outgoing president, Moncef Marzouki (who was elected by the constituent assembly in December 2011), is standing for re-election and would welcome this role. His trenchant stand against what he regards as the return of the former regime in the guise of Nidaa Tounes no doubt draws in part on the experience of his own family, who were exiles from Bourguiba’s repression.