The saga of splits, defections, resignations and below-the-belt hits is showing no sign of abating within Tunisia’s so-called modernist political parties. Indeed, the crisis within Nida Tounes has hit a new low with the freezing of the activities of the party’s regional section of Manouba. This latest episode in the crisis within Nida Tounes coincided with statements by former minister and party leading figure Faouzi Akermi that a new party structure and organisation would be decided on 20 November. Akremi said that the post of the party executive director (currently held by Hafedh Essebsi son of President Caid Essebsi) would be abolished. Besides, four MPs from Nidaa’s parliamentary bloc have resigned, while another 15 threatening to follow suit. The Movement for Tunisia’s Project, founded by Mohsen Merzouk last March, after defecting from Nidaa Tounes, is not immune from leadership struggles within his nascent party either. Merzouk is facing four law suits in court brought against him by members of his political bureau regarding the election of the party’s organs, held in September and October.

The third modernist political group that has been going through difficult times is Mustapha Ben Jaafar’s Forum démocratique pour le travail et les libertés (or Ettakatol), which formed the 2011 Troika government with Ennahdah and the Congress for the Republic. Mohamed Bennour, co-founder of the party in 1994, announced early this week his resignation from the party citing his deception as to the inability of his party to reform itself after the electoral failure of 2014. Besides, Bennour criticised Ben Jaafar’s clinging to the party’s leadership and his refusal to allow young leaders to revive the party’s mechanisms.

The picture is not brighter within the leftist camp either. In early September Mongi Rahoui, leader of the Parti unifié des patriotes démocrates (Watad), under the Popular Front umbrella, criticised the PF’s leader Hama Hamami’s political options and lack of democratisation within the PF. Mongi went public following Hamami’s rejection of PM Youcef Chahed’s invitation for dialogue on the formation of his national coalition government. Mongi alerted Hamami that the PF must change its discourse and can no longer take refuge in its “categoric and permanent rejection of the policies formulated by the government and its quasi-constant opposition.” Mongi warned that Tunisians had enough of such a policy and that it should not be taken for granted that the quarter of a million who voted for the FP in 2014, would do so again come the next local elections.

Links for more information:
http://www.lapresse.tn/23102016/121755/nida-tounes
http://www.letemps.com.tn/article/99737/mohsen-marzouk
http://www.leconomistemaghrebin.com/2016/10/24/ettakatol
http://kapitalis.com/tunisie/2016/09/08/mongi-rahoui-marque-sa-difference

Posted by lakhdarghettas

Dr. Lakhdar Ghettas Author of Algeria and the Cold War: International Relations and the Struggle for Autonomy (London & NY: IB Tauris, 2018)