The China Mail - Once a leading force, battered Tunisian party awaits elusive comeback

USD -
AED 3.672504
AFN 68.570456
ALL 82.946759
AMD 383.940403
ANG 1.789699
AOA 917.000367
ARS 1270.819424
AUD 1.522997
AWG 1.802
AZN 1.70397
BAM 1.664723
BBD 2.015662
BDT 122.041112
BGN 1.668041
BHD 0.377069
BIF 2975.613908
BMD 1
BND 1.279142
BOB 6.897902
BRL 5.561504
BSD 0.998255
BTN 86.401668
BWP 13.403413
BYN 3.26697
BYR 19600
BZD 2.005277
CAD 1.36945
CDF 2889.000362
CHF 0.795504
CLF 0.02439
CLP 956.830396
CNY 7.154041
CNH 7.167485
COP 4108.25
CRC 504.3197
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 94.088786
CZK 20.91695
DJF 177.767375
DKK 6.353705
DOP 60.569434
DZD 129.532281
EGP 49.106694
ERN 15
ETB 138.925054
EUR 0.851304
FJD 2.24275
FKP 0.739414
GBP 0.744435
GEL 2.710391
GGP 0.739414
GHS 10.458007
GIP 0.739414
GMD 72.000355
GNF 8663.233604
GTQ 7.68151
GYD 208.860706
HKD 7.84925
HNL 26.140358
HRK 6.416804
HTG 131.003958
HUF 337.840388
IDR 16359.8
ILS 3.353355
IMP 0.739414
INR 86.506304
IQD 1307.741414
IRR 42112.503816
ISK 121.120386
JEP 0.739414
JMD 159.237349
JOD 0.70904
JPY 147.65604
KES 128.978167
KGS 87.303799
KHR 3998.808359
KMF 418.503794
KPW 899.982162
KRW 1383.435039
KWD 0.30533
KYD 0.831936
KZT 543.984338
LAK 21520.194067
LBP 89446.48253
LKR 301.204409
LRD 200.153211
LSL 17.717666
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 5.388773
MAD 8.977146
MDL 16.79108
MGA 4409.073499
MKD 52.398178
MMK 2099.515131
MNT 3587.289516
MOP 8.071328
MRU 39.841682
MUR 45.410378
MVR 15.403739
MWK 1731.029493
MXN 18.538904
MYR 4.221504
MZN 63.959964
NAD 17.717666
NGN 1531.930377
NIO 36.736605
NOK 10.162204
NPR 138.242329
NZD 1.659063
OMR 0.384636
PAB 0.998255
PEN 3.535771
PGK 4.137549
PHP 57.150375
PKR 282.88956
PLN 3.617313
PYG 7477.550326
QAR 3.648015
RON 4.314104
RSD 99.719113
RUB 79.380091
RWF 1442.992722
SAR 3.751624
SBD 8.285095
SCR 14.147338
SDG 600.503676
SEK 9.528104
SGD 1.280204
SHP 0.785843
SLE 22.950371
SLL 20969.503947
SOS 570.54092
SRD 36.663504
STD 20697.981008
STN 20.853726
SVC 8.734732
SYP 13002.884022
SZL 17.711197
THB 32.370369
TJS 9.533643
TMT 3.51
TND 2.921689
TOP 2.342104
TRY 40.551304
TTD 6.788101
TWD 29.482804
TZS 2558.113802
UAH 41.740903
UGX 3588.236047
UYU 40.08789
UZS 12631.399753
VES 120.273404
VND 26145
VUV 119.477682
WST 2.737488
XAF 558.332553
XAG 0.026182
XAU 0.0003
XCD 2.70255
XCG 1.799123
XDR 0.694387
XOF 558.332553
XPF 101.510831
YER 240.950363
ZAR 17.76526
ZMK 9001.203584
ZMW 23.284675
ZWL 321.999592
  • RBGPF

    7.0000

    75

    +9.33%

  • CMSD

    0.0400

    22.89

    +0.17%

  • BCE

    -0.2300

    24.2

    -0.95%

  • SCS

    0.0700

    10.58

    +0.66%

  • NGG

    -0.0800

    72.15

    -0.11%

  • JRI

    -0.0600

    13.09

    -0.46%

  • GSK

    -0.2600

    37.97

    -0.68%

  • BCC

    1.7100

    88.14

    +1.94%

  • CMSC

    0.0550

    22.485

    +0.24%

  • SCU

    0.0000

    12.72

    0%

  • RIO

    -0.7300

    63.1

    -1.16%

  • RELX

    -0.9800

    52.73

    -1.86%

  • VOD

    -0.0900

    11.43

    -0.79%

  • AZN

    -1.0200

    72.66

    -1.4%

  • RYCEF

    -0.3500

    13.15

    -2.66%

  • BP

    0.0700

    32.2

    +0.22%

  • BTI

    -0.3700

    52.25

    -0.71%

Once a leading force, battered Tunisian party awaits elusive comeback
Once a leading force, battered Tunisian party awaits elusive comeback / Photo: © AFP/File

Once a leading force, battered Tunisian party awaits elusive comeback

The party that once dominated Tunisian politics has faded away since President Kais Saied staged a dramatic power grab, with its offices shuttered and leaders behind bars or in exile.

Text size:

But observers say that Ennahdha, the Islamist-inspired movement still considered by some Tunisians as the country's main opposition party, could still bounce back after a devastating government crackdown.

On July 25, 2021, Saied stunned the country when he suspended parliament and dissolved the government, a move critics denounced as a "coup" a decade after the Arab Spring revolt ushered in a democratic transition in the North African country.

Many of Saied's critics have been prosecuted and jailed, including Ennahdha leader Rached Ghannouchi, 84, a former parliament speaker who was sentenced earlier this month to 14 years in prison for plotting against the state.

Ghannouchi, who was arrested in 2023, has racked up several prison terms, including a 22-year sentence handed in February on the same charge.

The crackdown over the past four years has seen around 150 Ennahdha figures imprisoned, prosecuted or living in exile, according to a party official.

"Some believe the movement is dead, but that is not the case," said political scientist Slaheddine Jourchi.

Ennahdha has been "weakened to the point of clinical death" but remained the most prominent party in Tunisia's "fragmented and fragile" opposition, Jourchi added.

- 'Once we're free again' -

Riadh Chaibi, a party official and adviser to Ghannouchi, said that even after "shrinking" its political platform, Ennahdah was still a relevant opposition outlet.

"Despite repression, prosecutions and imprisonment" since 2021, "Ennahdha remains the country's largest political movement," Chaibi said.

He said the current government has been "weaponising state institutions to eliminate political opponents", but "once we're free again, like we were in 2011, Ennahdha will regain its strength".

Since 2011, when Ghannouchi returned from exile to lead the party, Ennahdha for years had a key role in Tunisian politics, holding the premiership and other senior roles.

But by 2019, the year Saied was elected president, the party's popularity had already begun waning, winning only a third of the 1.5 million votes it had in 2011.

Experts ascribed this trend to the party's failure to improve living standards and address pressing socio-economic issues.

Ennahdha has also been accused of jihadist links, which it has repeatedly denied.

Saied, who religiously avoids mentioning either Ennahdha or Ghannouchi by name, has often referred to the party's years in power as "the black decade" and accused it of committing "crimes against the country".

Crowds of Tunisians, increasingly disillusioned as a political deadlock trumped Ennahdha's promise of change, poured into the streets in celebration when Saied forced the party out of the halls of power in 2021.

Analyst Jourchi said Ennahdha's rise to power was a "poorly prepared adventure", and the party had "made many mistakes along the way".

Left-wing politician Mongi Rahoui said it was "only natural that Ennahdha leaders and their governing partners be prosecuted for crimes they used their political position to commit".

Today, the party's activities have been reduced mostly to issuing statements online, often reacting to prison sentences handed down to critics of Saied.

- 'Silence everything' -

But Ennahdha has weathered repression before, harshly suppressed under Tunisia's autocratic presidents Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Party leaders were jailed or forced into exile, and Ghannouchi was sentenced to life in prison under Bourguiba but then freed -- and later exiled -- under Ben Ali.

Tunisian historian Abdellatif Hannachi said that the party "seems to be bending with the wind, waiting for changes that would allow it to return".

It has been in "clear decline", he added, but "that does not mean it's disappearing."

Ennahdha's downfall was not an isolated case. Other opposition forces have also been crushed, and dozens of political, media and business figures are currently behind bars.

"This regime no longer distinguishes between Islamist and secular, progressive and conservative," rights advocate Kamel Jendoubi, a former minister, recently said in a Facebook post.

Saied's government "wants to silence everything that thinks, that criticises, or resists", Jendoubi argued.

The opposition, however, remains fractured, failing for example to come together in rallies planned for the anniversary this month of Saied's power grab.

V.Fan--ThChM