Did Political Islam Fail in Tunisia?
Author: EMAN Network staff
On 25 July, Tunisian President Kais Saied ousted Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and froze the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, the Tunisian Parliament, triggering political turmoil in a country already suffering from a severe COVID-19 crisis. The president of parliament and leader of the Islamist Ennahda party, Rached Ghannouchi, accused Said of launching a coup and called his supporters to protect the will of the people and constitutional legitimacy.
Regional and international Muslim Brotherhood organisations have also condemned Saied’s move and described it as a “coup against the will of the people”. Furthermore, a number of Islamist preachers in the region accused the Tunisian president of joining international Zionist and secular forces in their fight against Islam. However, these positions, based on religious and extremist explanations, have failed to mobilise Tunisians against Saied.
Seeing the ongoing political struggle in Tunisia through an ideological lens could lead to a partial and even mistaken understanding of the crisis. In fact, the majority of political actors, including Ennahda, agree on the most critical themes such as political pluralism, civil rights, and the relationship between the state and religion. The popular discontent against the Islamist party and therefore the government is driven by the mismanagement of the pandemic, the economic free fall, and rising unemployment. Due to COVID-19, the Tunisian economy contracted by 8.2% and the fiscal deficit has expanded to 11.5%. What’s more, unemployment has reached 16% in the third quarter of 2020.
Meanwhile, most Tunisians, exhausted by persisting socio-economic hardships, have become anti-establishment since the 2011 uprising. Around a dozen consecutive governments since then have failed to fight the endemic corruption or address the population’s demands. Consequently, Ennahda has become, at least in the eyes of an important segment within the society, a synonym of legislative paralysis, power struggles, and economic failures.
Saied’s measures have drawn comparisons with the Egyptian army’s decision to ouster the Muslim Brotherhood from power in 2012. The comparison was particularly raised by Islamist activists who believe that there is a Western plan to prevent Islamists from seizing power in the Middle East and North Africa region. As a result, Islamists, particularly those with a more militancy-oriented ideology, are likely to instrumentalise what happened to Ennahda to justify their extremist view on governments and secularism in the Arab world.
However, these efforts are unlikely to strengthen Islamists’ narrative. Ennahda’s leadership, while considering local and regional realities, has refrained from triggering a confrontation with the army and the state. This move could cost the party some of its electoral bases and sympathizers but would maintain the party’s reputation as a moderate force, particularly with respect to social norms and customs.
