Ennahda’s current decline is distinct from its decline in the 1980s and 1990s, when it was at odds with Presidents Bourguiba and Ben Ali. The current decline is distinctive because it started long after the party entered the legislature and assumed power. It maintained its popularity throughout the 1980s and 1990s by adopting victimhood rhetoric, which helped it win elections and led to its election to the presidency of the Assembly of the People’s Representatives (APR), which was disbanded on March 30, 2022.
Currently, after evaluating its experience in governance, the weakness of its parliamentary performance, which reached a point of disarray within the APR, and given its attempt to impose the Brotherhood project in a region that rejected it, we find that its popularity has declined, its organisational structure has disintegrated, and its internal crises have escalated through defections and arrests. This suggests, if anything, that there are warning signs that the movement might fragment and end up being classified as a terrorist organisation.
In light of this, this analysis goes over signs of the movement’s weaknesses as well as possible scenarios.
Signs of Decline
Ennahda has undergone numerous changes over the course of its history. In February 1989, it changed from the Movement of Islamic Tendency, which had been outlawed under former presidents Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, to Ennahda Movement. After 2011, it evolved into a political party. As such, it evolved gradually from an Islamic movement to a political party. Its trajectory reveals that it did not always progress at the same rate, but rather experienced fluctuations along the way.
In the 1960s of the previous century, prior to becoming politically active as an opposition movement to the government of former President Habib Bourguiba in the late 1970s, the movement played a preaching role. After former President Zine El Abidine assumed office in 1987, Ennahda was subjected to severe repression, and thousands of its members were imprisoned. Ghannouchi and other leaders were exiled for twenty years before returning to Tunisia in 2011 after the Tunisian revolution. Ennahda took part in the coalition government that was formed following the overthrow of Ben Ali’s government and the constitution-writing process in 2014.
• Ennahda’s Subpar Performance in the Legislature: In the 2011 elections, Ennahda won 89 out of 217 seats, whereas in 2014, this number had decreased to 69. This trend continued in the 2019 legislative elections, when it won 52 seats out of a total of 217. After the 2019 elections, when Rashed Ghannouchi assumed the position of president of parliament, the parliamentary arena descended into chaos and underperformance. During his presidency, chaos reigned and confidence in Ennahda members declined, but on 25 July 2021, President Kais Saied took extraordinary measures, suspending Parliament’s work and then dissolving it due to Ennahda’s behaviour and insistence on controlling state institutions and the selection of a prime minister sympathetic to it, where it coordinated with now-deposed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi to carry out a cabinet reshuffle in January 2021 in which he replaced Tawfiq Sharaf Al Din with Walid Al-Dhahabi as the new interior minister, which subsequently contributed to its engagement in an ongoing conflict with President Saied.
• Internal Divisions and Defections: Approximately 131 leaders and members of Ennahda have resigned in the recent period, with Mohamed Al-Nouri, a member of its Shura Council, Abdellatif Mekki, Samir Dilou, Mohamed Ben Salem, and Taoufik Saidi being among the most notable. Other notable resignations came from members of the dissolved APR, including Jamila Ksiksi, Toumi Hamrouni, Rabab Al-Latif, Nasiba Ben Ali, a number of members of the National Constituent Assembly, including Amel Azzouz, and some members of the National Shura Council, the regional shura councils, and the regional and local offices. If anything, this demonstrates the state of internal fragility within Ennahda, let alone the previous disputes with Ghannouchi, the leader of Ennahda, prior to his imprisonment and holding him accountable for the outcome of the internal situation, particularly by the youth dissatisfied with the performance of Ennahda’s leaders. In this regard, approximately 130 young people signed a statement in July 2021 in which they accused Ennahda’s leaders of failing and being careless and emphasised the need to place Tunisia’s interests above their party’s narrow interests. Many Ennahda members opposed Ghannouchi’s bid for a third term as movement leader due to his propensity to make unilateral decisions, the lack of democratic rotation in that position, and their adherence to the statute and regulations stipulating that the head of the movement may not run for more than two terms.
• Involvement in Security-Related Cases: Several Ennahda members and leaders were involved in security cases, including accusations that the movement had set up a covert operation to oversee the murders of political figures like Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi. Additionally, Ennahda members were charged with recruiting young people to travel to volatile countries like Syria, Iraq, and Libya. According to the Tunisian Counter-terrorism Committee, there were approximately 3,000 Tunisians living in conflict zones in 2019. The former Prime Minister Ali Laarayedh and the former minister of justice Noureddine Bhiri were suspended as a result of their roles in issuing passports to fighters.
On April 17, 2023, more Ennahda leaders were detained after Ghannouchi was arrested for his involvement in several cases involving the state’s national security and conspiring against it. Ghannouchi was also accused of plotting to overthrow the government, creating a covert security system, and being held accountable in other cases involving money laundering and corruption. After his imprisonment, the National Salvation Front (NSF), which opposes President Saied’s policies, as well as the Ennahda Movement’s headquarters were closed, and meetings there were forbidden. Mohamed Al-Qumani, Ennahda’s leader, Belkasim Hassan, the political bureau’s deputy leader, and Muhammad Shaniba, the official in charge of the movement’s student activity, were all taken into custody. This occurred in the wake of their participation in a symposium hosted by the NSF on April 15 that threatened civil war if the movement was denied power and labelled President Saied’s supporters as terrorists. During this symposium, Ghannouchi stated, “Tunisia without Ennahda, without political Islam, without the left, or any other component, is a project for civil war.”
On May 15th, Ghannouchi received a sentence of one year in prison. The NSF’s Johar bin Mubarak and Issam Chebbi, as well as Ghazi Chaouachi and Abdelfattah Taghouti, a member of the Ennahda’s Shura Council, were among the other leaders who were detained on suspicion of plotting against state security. Several first-tier leaders were arrested, including Sayed Al-Ferjani, Fawzi Kammoun, the former director of Ghannouchi’s office, Ahmed Al-Mashriqi, the current director of Ghannouchi’s office, and Youssef Al-Nouri, a member of Ennahdha’s central command. Additionally, several Ennahdha leaders were detained, including former Prime Minister Ali Laarayedh, former Minister of Justice Nouruddin Behairi, political activist and former movement leader Abdul Hamid Al-Jalasi, Sahbi Ateeq, resigned movement leader Muhammad bin Salem, Sayed Al-Ferjani, Habib Al-Louz, former Minister of Investment Riad Al-Tayeb, and Director of Radio Mosaique Noureddine Boutar, in cases of conspiracies against the security of the state and others involving terrorism.
Add to this the arrest of Judge Bashir Al-Akrami, NSF leaders Ridha Belhaj and Johar bin Mubarak, former businessman Khayyam Al-Turki, political activists Ali Al-Lafi, Saad Bouazizi, several former APR members, including Rashid Al-Khayari, Ahmed Al-Ammari, activist Mohammed Al-Mazoughi, regional general secretary Mohamed Saleh Boualaki, Youssef Al-Nouri, and Abdel Karim Al-Harouni (who is currently house arrestee for corruption and terrorism-related offences). The arrest of Ennahda Vice President Monther Al-Wanissi was the most recent of these. Leaders of the district offices, including Ali El-Nafati, the secretary general in Bizerte; Haitham al-Benzarty, the secretary general in Ras Jebel; and Hamza Al-Akkari, a member of the area office in Utica, were also suspended. Twelve individuals were the target of an international subpoena, including Ghannouchi’s son, former Prime Minister Youssef Chahed, and former presidential Diwan director Nadia Okasha.
Anticipated Scenarios
Given the signs of decline that Ennahdha has seen over the past few years, the following two scenarios can be identified as likely outcomes for the movement:
1. The first possibility is the dissolution of Ennahda as a result of the crises it has endured over the past few years, with the state intending to continue investigating the cases in which Ennahda members are implicated. Consequently, this may result in the dissolution and disintegration of Ennahda in light of the direction of parliamentarians since last July, according to the statements of Fatima Al-Masdi regarding the signing of a political bylaw and the labelling of Ennahda as a terrorist organisation on the basis of the cases in which it was involved, which affect the national security of the Tunisian state, including establishing a secret apparatus, conspiring against state security, committing political assassinations, and deporting young people to conflict zones. The bylaw emphasised the need to hold those responsible for crimes against the populace over the past ten years accountable, work towards achieving the right definition of sovereignty by defending national institutions from the intrusions of Ennahda, and make the decision to forbid meetings at Ennahda’s headquarters and to close it in a way that restricts its political activity. The challenge that this scenario still faces is dealing with pressure from other countries that support Ennahda, but this pressure may be met by support for the current regime from other countries that have different views on Political Islam currents.
2. The second possibility is that Ennahdha will continue to operate covertly until a suitable opportunity arises, as it did in the past despite the arrest of its leaders. Ennahdha has experienced arrests throughout its history, and during the administrations of former presidents Bourguiba and Ben Ali, it occasionally engaged in covert activity. Its leaders were sometimes detained and forced to leave their positions of authority. This is not the first time Ghannouchi has been arrested, as he was sentenced to eleven years in prison in 1981 and served approximately three years before being released as part of a general amnesty. In 1991 and 1988, he was sentenced in absentia to life in prison, but he fled to several countries, including Algeria in 1989, then Sudan, and Britain. In 1993, he was granted political asylum in the United Kingdom for approximately 21 years, after which he returned to Tunisia with the revolution.
Based on this, there is a chance that he will return to political work after serving his prison sentence, but not necessarily to the presidency of Ennahda, which has a propensity to select new leaders to lead the organisation. Despite the repeated arrests, Ennahda’s eleventh conference is set to take place in October, and there have been some concerns raised about moving up the General Conference. The tenth conference was held in 2016, and there had previously been a disagreement with Ghannouchi over the conference’s repeated postponements and accusations that he wanted to change the internal rules to run for Ennahda’s presidency once more. Belkasim Hassan, however, argued that keeping the conference on schedule entails not forsaking Rashid Ghannouchi and Ali Laarayedh, and that the conference’s duty is to elect a new leadership alongside its president and two vice presidents. Mohsen Al-Sudani, a member of Ennahda’s Shura Council, has made statements indicating that the conference may be cancelled, and that Ennahda is still debating who will occupy the position of president of the movement after the imprisonment of Monther Al-Wanissi, the interim president, and choosing an acting president, but a decision will not be made until a verdict is issued against Al-Wanissi.
In conclusion, there is no doubt that the imprisonment of some of Ennahda’s top and second-tier leaders, as well as the closure of its entire main headquarters, have contributed to the movement’s complexity, decline in status, and loss of popularity.
In conclusion, there is no question that the imprisonment of some of Ennahda’s top and second-tier leaders, as well as the closure of its entire main headquarters, are factors that have contributed to the movement’s complexity, decline in status, and loss of popularity. It can, however, adapt and operate covertly at times. Therefore, it might be possible for it to come back in the medium term. This, however, is contingent on the state’s trajectory in Tunisia and on whether the situation will be swiftly resolved through a political and administrative decision to ban and disband Ennahda.
