Tunisia's ruling Islamist Ennahda party's leader Rachid Ghannouchi (R) signs documents during a meeting as part of the dialogue between Tunisia's ruling Islamists and the opposition on October 5, 2013. (Fethi Belaid/AFP/Getty Images)[/caption]During their last months in power in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood based their counter-propaganda on defending Shar'iyyah (legitimacy)---an assertion that was somewhat accurate. The very same claims from the Ennahda party and its allies in Tunisia today also hold some truth. Equally, however do those of their opponents, who maintain that Ennahda’s legitimacy is over. The problem lies in the unrealistic nature of this principle in today’s context, but also in the denial of its existence by the opposition since day one. It has created a climate of mistrust in Tunisia’s political environment, which has thrown the country into a seemingly endless crisis.
The 2011 National Constituent Assembly (ANC) election was free and fair. Ennahda won eighty-nine seats over a total of 217. Its two allies, the pan-Arabist and populist Congress for the Republic (CPR) and Francophile and social-democratic Ettakatol party, received respectively twenty-nine and twenty seats. The coalition of three parties in the constituent assembly, or “Troika,” as it later became known, held 138 seats; almost two-thirds of the ANC. Youth groups and leftists, who were very vocal and active during the three-week uprising that toppled Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, could barely organize themselves that year and were defeated. Parties with open connections to the ancien régime were decimated. In truth, Tunisians voted for those whose language they understood: Ennahda, the CPR and another populist party Al-Aridha, (which was not included in the Troika, but won twenty-six seats.)
A gentlemen’s agreement between most of these parties stated that a constitution would be written, and elections organized in the period of one year. The transition was scheduled to have ended by October 23, 2012, but the agreement was never respected. Ennahda waged a wide campaign to discredit its opponents, sometimes employing thugs to crush their meetings. On the other side, many voices inside the opposition refused to recognize the election results, and every action or decision by the transitional government was portrayed either as though it would spell the end of the world or that it was illegitimate. This is indicative of what could be named the “Arabocracy syndrome:” when you win, you think you have won forever and when you lose, you refuse to admit your defeat. Mistrust was prevalent between the two blocs, and it has continued for two years.
Soon after the Troika was formed, divisions started to shake its foundations. While Ennahda remains strong today, CPR and Ettakatol are doomed. Several historic leaders of the party left their ranks while its grassroots members joined other parties. Western media continues to talk about a “secular-Islamist coalition,” but it is in fact one made up of mainly Ennahda. Inside the Troika, CPR and Ettakatol have come to resemble the lighter spices in a couscous dish. The Shar'iyyah upon which the parties of the Troika built their claim to the governorship of the country is now over.
In 2012, former Prime Minister Beji Caid El-Sebsi founded a new party, Nida Tounes (NT), quickly becoming the country’s second largest. Scores of Ben Ali and Bourguiba affiliates found refuge under its nationalist banner, alongside a mixture of leftists, socialists and liberals. The Nida Tounes is now asking for representation and participation. So is the Popular Front (FP), founded the same year and regrouping the extreme left. While remaining smaller than Ennahda and Nida Tounes, FP has won the sympathy of many, especially after the assassination of its leaders Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi, earlier this year. NT and FP have called several times for the dissolution of the ANC and the “returning to a pre-October 2011 phase.”
Moreover, the transitional period has had its fair share of security and economic problems. Free speech has flourished of course, and Tunisian society, largely apolitical for the last two decades, now resembles a Lebanese one with the free and daily use of political jokes and discussions. But words fail to feed a hungry stomach. Though it is an exaggerated analogy, since few people die of hunger in Tunisia and homelessness remains limited, words do not pay for the morning coffee or the Eid Al-Adha sheep, the high cost of children’s education or the financial burden of modern city-life. Parents struggling to make ends meet will not go deep into political analysis to explain these issues. All the blame is thrown onto Ennahda, whose policies, it has to be said worsened many of these problems.
Refusing to recognize the results of the last election and considering the transitional period as a useless parenthesis is deepening government suspicion and makes these opposition parties look like putschists. Ennahda was indeed the big winner of October 2011, but it shared victory with two other parties whose presence in the Troika soon weakened. The legitimacy of the Troika has hence been eroded, though Ennahda---despite its tarnished rule---does maintain a semblance of that legitimacy. Moreover, it has serious foes to compete with that were almost nonexistent in 2011: the ancien régime is back with its efficient organizational machine, while the opposition is coalescing in big blocs, rallied by Tunisia’s youth. Refusing to recognize that the situation has changed and that resignation is part of the democratic game, Ennahda resembles a dictatorship in the making.
The Shar'iyyah is shrinking day after day. Yet the National Dialogue which started this month, bringing together the major political parties and expected to cover all points of discord from the ANC work to the government's resignation, is a glimpse of hope for Tunisia.
All views expressed in this blog post are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, The Majalla magazine.
