Ennahda losing popularity in Tunisia

Sara Rashad

A new opinion poll has come out to shed light on the decreasing popularity of Ennahda Movement, the Muslim Brotherhood branch in Tunisia.

Around 76% of the people participating in the opinion poll, which was conducted by the polling agency, Sigma Conseil, said they did not have confidence in Ennahda’s head Rached Ghannouchi who is also the Speaker of the Tunisian Parliament.

The same people expressed hopes that Ghannouchi would not play any role on Tunisia’s political stage in the future.

However, the poll participants expressed more confidence in Tunisian President Kais Saied.

Saied emerged in the poll, whose results were announced on August 18, as the most trustworthy political figure in Tunisia.

The results of the opinion poll back views expressed previously by political analysts that Ennahda would be harmed by the bid of Tunisian lawmakers to withdraw confidence from Ghannouchi, even if this bid fails.

Ninety-seven MPs voted to withdraw confidence from the parliament speaker, whereas the success of their motion had required backing from 109 MPs.

Losing popularity

Ennahda is the most fortunate Islamist organization in Tunisia. It succeeded in reaching power in Tunisia, depending on the votes of ordinary Tunisians.

Nonetheless, the movement has been losing popularity for a whole year now.

Ennahda is coming at the center of accusations of assassinating leftist politicians Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi.

Assassinations by the secret militia of Ennahda are bringing the movement under fire.

Before his death, the late Tunisian president Beji Caid Essebsi threatened to uncover the violations of Ennahda and those involved in the assassination of the two leftist politicians.

Ennahda is also involved in Libya and the movement’s role in the neighboring country is also apparently negatively affecting its popularity.

The Tunisian movement announced support to terrorist militias in Libya after they overran the western part of the country.

This threw light on links between Ennahda and terrorist militias and groups around the world.