Ennahda nominates  Ghannouchi as Tunisia’s House Speaker

Asmaa El-Batakouchi

Tunisia’s Ennahda party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, is playing its last card in the incoming government formation, which is to nominate its leader leader Rached Ghannouchi to be the new House Speaker.

Tunisia’s Independent High Authority for Elections had announced the formal results of the Oct. 6 parliamentary elections with Ennahda confirmed as the winner of the most seats, with 52 in the 217-member legislative body.

Ghannouchi, veteran leader of Ennahda, was proposed as candidate for speaker of parliament by the party’s Shura Council, according to council chief Abdelkarim Harouni.

Ghannouchi has never run for office but won a parliamentary seat in Tunis in the October 6 legislative polls.

Harouni on Sunday reiterated that Ennahda wants one of its own figures to head the new government.

The party has until Friday to announce its candidate for the premiership.

If Ennahda failed to form a government within 60 days of being mandated by the country’s new president, Kais Saied, he can task another party to try form a governing coalition. If that failed, new elections would be called.

Potential partners have not accepted that the new PM be one of Ennahda’s leaders: Attayar with 22 seats, Achaab’s Movement with 16 seats and current Prime Minister Youssef Chahed’s Tahya Tounes party with 14.

Harouni’s remarks came despite a senior Ennahda official telling Reuters on Friday that there is possibility of a figure from outside the party being nominated to head the next government.

Aboul Fadl al-Esnawy, an expert of North of Morocco’s affairs, told The Reference in an interview that Islamist movements in the Arab region, and since the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, are receding in Tunisia, Algeria, Libya and Morocco.

He further added that Ennahda is currently in trouble, as despite gathering the majority of votes in the Parliament, it will not be able to form the government, unless it allies with other parties, which makes things more difficult, because all political parties have already rejected dealing with Ennahda.