Tunisia's next elections will put governing alliance to test
After the founder of the secularist Nidaa Tounes Party Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi expressed his disappointment toward Islamist ally Ennahda, talk is growing about the future of the alliance between the two.
In a Sept. 5 interview with the Tunisian state paper Essahafa, Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi revealed in a surprise statement that he was disappointed with his Islamic allies in power. Speaking about his alliance with the Ennahda movement, he said, “We thought we could at least draw Ennahda to the civic arena, but it seems that we were wrong in our assessment."
After a three-year alliance between Essebsi’s Nidaa Tunis party and the Islamic Ennahda, the president is no longer convinced that the movement has turned into a civic party.
Although Ennahda did not offer an official response to the president’s statement, the movement’s leader, Abdelkarim Harouni, said in a press statement reported by the local news website al-Jarida on Sept. 7 that “Ennahda and Nidaa Tunis have chosen consensus and will remain on the same page.”
This is why some observers might assume that the president’s statements, regardless of how important they were, might not really affect the future of the alliance between the two parties.
