The Islamo-conservative formation weakened after the suspension of Parliament, stands as the guarantor of democracy against President Kaïs Saïed.
In El Ouardia, a quiet suburb in the south of Tunis, Mahmoud, a 63-year-old hairdresser, is resting in the shade of the trees. Nothing betrays the concern among this sympathizer of the Islamo-conservative party Ennahda, despite the unprecedented situation that Tunisia is going through after the coup by President Kaïs Saïed, who granted himself executive power and suspended Parliament for thirty days , Sunday July 25. This configuration puts Ennahda, the main formation in the hemicycle, to the test, in open conflict with the presidency for months and facing growing hostility from the population.
More and more Tunisians hold the party responsible for governance failures in the country’s democratic transition and for the economic and social crisis. Not Mahmoud who claims to have always remained loyal to Ennahda, “a solid party which has been a constant in the post-revolution political scene”. “Those who want to challenge it should do so through the ballot box,” he said, showing himself rather confident that a solution could be found “in the interest of the country” .
Beside him, Ali, retired, longtime party activist and victim of torture under the dictatorship of President Ben Ali (1989-2011), is more concerned. “We no longer know what will happen, I hope that we will not have another Rabia” , he blurted out, referring to the confrontation in Egypt, in the summer of 2013, between pro and anti-Mohamed Morsi, the Islamist president deposed by the army, which had given rise to the massacre in Rabia Al-Adawiya square.
Ensuring its political survival
“Today, the violent confrontation of the two legitimacies, that defended by Ennahda and that of the presidency, is one of the greatest dangers for the rest of the transition”, abounds the political scientist Selim Kharrat. Even if life has resumed its course in Tunisia, the risk of escalation is being scrutinized by the international community. On Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian “insisted on the need to preserve calm and the rule of law” and called for the “rapid appointment” of a head of government.
Placed in a delicate position, Ennahda is looking for a strategy to get out of the crisis. Its leader and leader of Parliament, Rached Ghannouchi, interrupted after a few hours on Monday the sit-in he had started in front of the entrance to Parliament. After denouncing a “coup” led by Kaïs Saïed, the party plays appeasement. To avoid violence, he asked his supporters not to take to the streets. It tries to ensure its political survival and to heal its international image, by posing as a guarantor of democratic institutions in the face of those who have flouted them.
Ennahda this calls for a national dialogue and the gathering of a front with various political formations to bring Kaïs Saïed to reverse its decisions. The formula has airs of déjà vu: the main trade union center in the country, the General Tunisian Labor Union (UGTT), has been asking for it for six months, without success. Ennahda also conditions its request for the re-establishment of parliamentary activity. However, facing him, Kaïs Saïed goes it alone. He still has not appointed a new head of government, and prefers political meetings with the security forces, social partners and associations.
Suspicions of corruption
Deprived of its main strength, its parliamentary legitimacy – it has the largest number of seats, 52 out of 217 – Ennahda must adapt. To save what can be saved, the party said it was ready on Tuesday “for the holding of simultaneous early legislative and presidential elections, in order to guarantee the protection of the democratic process and to prevent any delay from serving as a pretext for maintaining an autocratic regime ”.
New elections are however hardly in the interest of the party in view of the growing discontent it arouses among the population, and even more so in the context of a triple health, economic and social crisis. Between 2011 and 2019, a period during which he participated in almost every government, Ennahda lost 1.5 million voters. “We have to be humble. It is indisputable that part of the Tunisian street is not in our favor. We cannot pose as a victim, ” admits MP Saïda Ounissi.
The suspicions of corruption which weigh on the party also tarnished its image. On Wednesday, the spokesperson for the judicial and financial pole in Tunisia announced that an investigation into the campaign funding of three parties that are candidates for the 2019 legislative elections, including Ennahda, was opened on July 14. It concerns “obtaining foreign funding for the 2019 electoral campaign and accepting funds of unknown origin to finance this electoral campaign” .
The “consecration of the dictatorship”
Tunisian opinion was already moved, in mid-July, to see the party put pressure on the head of government, Hichem Mechichi, to accelerate the compensation of the victims of the dictatorship through a reparation fund set up. through transitional justice. Part of the population saw it as an attempt to grab state resources. “It was a question of appeasing activists who have been asking for their compensation for years, but it is a real failure on our part” , admits a Nahdhaoui official who requested anonymity. As the country stands on the brink of bankruptcy and faces a deadly new wave of Covid-19,”It was not the right moment, especially since the population believes that we have already benefited from a form of reparation for the abuses of the dictatorship with our place in power all these years,” he continues.
Many Tunisians attribute the bankruptcy of the political class to Ennahda, while the very heterogeneous Parliament has been plagued by conflict and political violence since the 2019 elections. ‘a Constitutional Court, the absence of which is sorely felt in the current crisis. “The problem is that to get rid of all responsibility, Ennahda repeats that it is not really he who governs, that he has never been alone. It is an indecent speech that ended up turning against him. Today, the party is perceived, even more than before, as the symbol of the power in place”, explains Yasmine Wardi Akrimi, a doctoral student in political science who witnessed the sacking of the party headquarters in the city of Hammamet on the evening of July 25.
Internal dissensions, within a formation yet renowned for its discipline, have never been so exposed to the light of the past two years, with the resignation of party officials and open criticism between members. Fractures have broken through again in statements of the past few days. While Samir Dilou, a deputy from Ennahda, welcomed the “reassuring statements” of Kaïs Saïed on rights and freedoms, another deputy, Noureddine Bhiri, castigated the “consecration of the dictatorship”. Rached Ghannouchi’s divisive personality and his attachment to power stoke tensions.
