He is the most prominent opponent arrested in Tunisia in recent months. Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of the Islamic conservative Ennahda party, who is regularly summoned by courts in “money laundering” or “terrorism” cases, was arrested at his home near Tunis on Monday, April 17.
The former president of the National Assembly, who was ousted from his post after President Kaïs Saïed’s coup in July 2021 and the dissolution of parliament, is dead after a speech on March 15 marginalizing political Islam, the movement that gave birth to his party.
Rached Ghannouchi, an early Islamist figure persecuted by the power of President Habib Bourguiba (1957-1987), founded a political party in the Muslim Brotherhood movement in the early 1980s. he retains the presidency of Ennhada (“Renaissance”), a formation then banned in Tunisia.
On January 30, 2011, fifteen days after President Ben Ali’s ouster, he made his grand return to the country, greeted by thousands of supporters who saw him as the man for the job of leading the democratic transition.
“A Force Madman”
In a few months, Ennahda will rise to the top. In the constituent elections in October 2011, the first democratic elections in Tunisia, the party won 89 out of 217 seats. At their helm, Rached Ghannouchi, a master of the art of compromise, knows how to make himself indispensable on the Tunisian political scene for a decade, even if it means forging alliances of circumstance, even against nature.
Around 2014, when he ruled hand-in-hand with the late President Beji Caïd Essebsi’s secular Nidaa Tounes party, or in 2019, when he became President of the National Assembly thanks to an agreement with the liberal Qalb Tounes party.
“Ghannouchi is a madman of power, a fine politician and obviously someone very intelligent who knew how to compromise, move forward when necessary and step down at the right moment,” analyzes Pierre Vermeren, professor of contemporary history of Arab societies . Berbers in Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. “He saw himself as a kind of Tunisian Erdogan with the goal of making the country an Islamic republic,” adds the specialist in Tunisian politics, referring to the Turkish president.
Anti-parliamentary rhetoric
Today, many Tunisians feel that the promises of the 2011 revolution have not been kept. As the country sinks into a deep institutional and economic crisis, much of public opinion blames Rached Ghannouchi and Ennahda for the current situation.
“The Islamists lost a large part of their popularity in the country because they didn’t pursue real economic and social policies,” recalls sociologist Vincent Geisser, a researcher at the CNRS. For a majority of Tunisians, Rached Ghannouchi is the “number one reason for the failure of the democratic transition,” according to Pierre Vermeren. “He is therefore an ideal scapegoat for President Saied.”
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By targeting Rached Ghannouchi, the Tunisian president is attacking a divisive figure and “a symbol of the parliamentary regime that he is dying to see disappear. It’s also a symbol of corruption and of the elites who worked to weaken Tunisian sovereignty,” analyzes Vincent Geißer.
Rached Ghannouchi has been the subject of an investigation since June over allegations of corruption and money laundering in connection with remittances from abroad to the Ennahda-affiliated charity Namaa Tunisie.
The President’s “Best Adversary”.
According to experts, Rached Ghannouchi appears to be the Tunisian President’s best enemy, whose traditional and conservative values he shares. “Rached Ghannouchi supported Kaïs Saïed’s campaign in 2019 and initially thought he could manipulate him. But the latter, once in power, finally broke with him and made him his best opponent,” recalls Pierre Vermeren.
Like the entire opposition, Rached Ghannouchi and Ennahda appear to have been weakened not only by the Tunisian government’s repression, but also by a deep internal crisis. The party has been losing leaders, activists and voters for several years due to lack of funding. “Rached Ghannouchi is pretty much alone today, international support has waned, and Tunisian public opinion has also changed a lot,” assures Pierre Vermeren, provoking a collapse in the country’s political scene.
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“Thus, with the arrest of Rached Ghannouchi, Kaïs Saïed wants to deal a blow to a party that is already going through an internal crisis, but which embarrasses it because its territory remains well established,” continues Vincent Geisser.
The day after Rached Ghannouchi was arrested, Tunisian authorities closed Ennahdha movement offices across the country, a party official said Tuesday.
This repression is part of an authoritarian and repressive turn by the Kaïs-Saïed regime. Since February 2023, around fifteen members of the opposition have been taken into custody, including ex-ministers, businessmen and the head of the country’s most listened-to radio station, Mosaïque FM.