Ennahda’s members rising up against Ghannouchi

Doaa Emam                   

The Ennahda movement, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia, still cannot regroup.

The movement’s failure to reunite precedes its General Congress which takes place every four years.

Fifteen members of the movement had recently frozen their membership in Ennahda’s Consultative Council and committees.

In this, these 15 members join in about 100 other members of the movement who had broken ranks with it.

They included deputies and former ministers.

False stability

Nonetheless, Ennahda continues to act defiantly in the face of these resignations, downplaying their effect on it.

Head of the movement’s Media and Communications Section, Abdel Fattah Taghouti, expected the movement’s internal problems not to affect its democratic experience.

He said the latest resignations were predicted ahead of the next General Congress.

“Ennahda can overcome such normal pressures,” Taghouti said.

Tunisian media has, meanwhile, quoted some unnamed sources in the movement as saying that the members who froze their membership had insisted on the dismissal of Rached Ghannouchi, the movement’s leader.

The same members accused Ghannouchi of being responsible for the failure and collapse of the movement.

New rifts within Ennahda exacerbate the movement’s internal crisis, especially with its senior members locking horns with Ghannouchi.

The same rifts open the door for defections and the emergence of new entities that can be established by members who had quit.

The movement’s leader’s intransigence and defiance in the face of the demands of the members makes this scenario very possible, observers say.

However, the leaders of the movement are unresponsive to the demands of the majority of members.

They even look disconnected from the streets in Tunisia where there is total rejection of the movement and its leaders.

This makes the timing of the General Congress of the movement totally inappropriate.