Ennahda
The Ennahda Movement, also known as the Renaissance Party or simply known as Ennahda, is a self-defined Islamic democratic political party in Tunisia.
Founded as the Movement of Islamic Tendency in 1981, Ennahda was inspired by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and through the latter, to Ruhollah Khomeini's own propelled ideology of "Islamic Government".
In the wake of the 2011 Tunisian revolution and collapse of the government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the Ennahda Movement Party was formed, and in the 2011 Tunisian Constituent Assembly election, won a plurality of 37% of the popular vote and formed the government. Uproar in the traditionally secular country over "Islamization" and assassinations of two secular politicians however, led to the 2013–14 Tunisian political crisis, and the party stepped down following the implementation of a new constitution in January 2014. The party came in second with 27.79% of the vote, in the 2014 Tunisian parliamentary election, forming a coalition government with the largest secular party, but did not offer or endorse a candidate in the November 2014 presidential election.
In 2018, lawyers and politicians accused Ennahda of forming a secret organisation that had infiltrated security forces and the judiciary. They also claimed the party was behind the 2013 assassinations of Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi, two progressive political leaders of the leftist Popular Front electoral alliance. Ennahda denied the accusations and accused the Popular Front of slandering and distorting Ennahda. It said that the Popular Front was exploiting the two assassination cases and using blood as an excuse to reach the government after failing to do so through democratic means.
Ideology
Following 2011 and the "Arab Spring" mainstream media reports, journalist Robert F. Worth calls it "the mildest and most democratic Islamist party in history." Others oppose this by highlighting the ideological adoption of the velayat-i feqih by the movement's founder Rached Ghannouchi, who has remained its president since 1984.Rached Ghannouchi says textually in his book: "The Islamic government is one in which: 1- supreme legislative authority is for the shari'a, which is the revealed law of Islam, which transcends all laws. "
According to associate professor of political science Sebnem Gumuscu, there were competing views within the party about liberal democracy in its early years, but since the 1990s, liberal Islamists pulled Ennahda towards democratic principles.
History
Early years
Succeeding a group known as Islamic Action, the party was founded under the name of "Movement of Islamic Tendency" in 1981.After the Tunisian bread riots in January 1984 the government suspected the MTI of involvement in the disturbances, and arrested many of its supporters. The MTI leaders had encouraged their followers to join in the riots, but the government produced no proof that they had organized them. The persecution of the MTI enhanced its reputation as an organization committed to helping the people.
In 1989, it changed its name to Ḥarakat Ennahḍha.
The party has been described as one of many parties/movements in Muslim states "that grew up alongside the Iranian revolution", and it was originally inspired by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The group supported the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, claiming that "It was not an embassy, but a spy centre". Their influence in 1984 was such that, according to Robin Wright, a British journalist living in Tunisia, stated that the Islamic Tendency was "the single most threatening opposition force in Tunis. One word from the fundamentalists will close down the campus or start a demonstration."
Although traditionally shaped by the thinking of Islamist thinkers Sayyid Qutb and Maududi, the party began to be described as "moderate Islamist" in the 1980s when it advocated democracy and a "Tunisian" form of Islamism recognizing political pluralism and a "dialogue" with the West. Its main leader Rached Ghannouchi, has been criticized for calling for jihad against Israel and "openly threatened U.S. interests, supported Iraq against the United States and campaigned against the Arab-Israeli peace process". Others described him as "widely considered... a moderate who believes that Islam and democracy are compatible".
In the 1989 elections, President Ben Ali banned the party from participating but allowed some members to run as independents. These received between 10% and 17% of the vote nationally according to official figures of the regime, and despite what some observers thought was "widespread fraud". Allegedly surprised by Ennahda's popularity, two years later Ben Ali banned the movement and jailed 25,000 activists. Many Ennahda members went into exile.
Ennahda's newspaper Al-Fajr was banned in Tunisia and its editor, Hamadi Jebali, was sentenced to sixteen years imprisonment in 1992 for membership in the un-authorized organisation and for "aggression with the intention of changing the nature of the state". The Arabic language television station El Zaytouna is believed to be connected with Ennahda. The party was strongly repressed in the late 1980s and early 1990s and almost completely absent from Tunisia from 1992 until the post-revolutionary period. "Tens of thousands" of Islamists were imprisoned or exiled during this time.
Revolution and return to political scene
In the wake of the Tunisian Revolution, thousands of people welcomed Rached Ghannouchi on his return to Tunis. The party was described as moving "quickly to carve out a place" in the Tunisian political scene, "taking part in demonstrations and meeting with the prime minister." Earlier Ghannouchi announced that the party had "signed a shared statement of principles with the other Tunisian opposition groups". The New York Times reported mixed predictions among Tunisians for the party's success, with some believing the party would enjoy support in the inland part of Tunisia, but others saying Tunisia was "too secular" for the Ennahda Party to gain broad support.On 22 January 2011, in an interview with Al Jazeera TV, Rached Ghannouchi confirmed that he is against an Islamic Caliphate, and supports democracy instead, unlike Hizb ut-Tahrir,.
The party was legalised on 1 March 2011. A March 2011 opinion poll found the Ennahda Party ranked first among political parties in Tunisia with 29%, followed by the Progressive Democratic Party at 12.3% and the Ettajdid Movement at 7.1%. It was also found that 61.4% of Tunisians "ignore political parties in the country." This success has caused some secularist to call for the postponing of elections in what many described as "secularism extremism" who were hellbent on denying Ennahda forming the government despite what election observers described as free and fair democratic process.
In May 2011, Ennahda's General Secretary Hamadi Jebali traveled to Washington, D.C., on the invitation of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy He also met U.S. Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman.
Ennahda's leaders have been described as "highly sensitive to the fears among other West about Islamic party". "We are not an Islamist party, we are an Islamic party, that also gets its bearings by the principles of the Quran." Moreover, he named Turkey a model, regarding the relation of state and religion, and compared the party's Islamic democratic ideology to Christian democracy in Italy and Germany.
On a press conference in June 2011, the Ennahda Party presented itself as modern and democratic and introduced a female member who wore a headscarf and a member who didn't, and announced the launching of a youth wing. Süddeutsche Zeitung noted that, unlike leftist parties of Tunisia, the moderately Islamic party is not against a market economy.
On 31 December 2021, Ennahda claimed in a statement that the party's Vice President and member of the Tunisian parliament, Noureddine Bhiri, had been abducted by “security forces with civilian clothes and taken to an unknown destination.” On 2 January 2022, AFP reported that Bhiri had been rushed to intensive care at a hospital in the northern town Bizerte and was in a "critical condition". The speaker of Tunisia's suspended parliament, Rached Ghannouchi wrote to President Kais Saied asking him to reveal Bhiri's whereabouts and condition.
2011 Constituent Assembly election
Ahead of the Constituent Assembly election on 23 October 2011, the party conducted extensive electoral campaign, extensively providing potential voters, especially from the lower class, with promotional gifts, meals for the end of Ramadan feasts, and sponsoring events.In the 23 October 2011 Tunisian Constituent Assembly election, the first free election in the country's history with a turn out of 51.1% of all eligible voters, the Ennahda Party won 37.04% of the vote and 89 of the 217 seats, making it by far the strongest party in the legislature.
According to scholar Noah Feldman, rather than being a "puzzling disappointment for the forces of democracy", the Ennahda victory is a natural outcome of inevitable differences between revolution's leaders and the fact that "Tunisians see Islam as a defining feature of their personal and political identities." Rached Ghannouchi, the party's leader was one of the few "voices of resistance to the regime in the last 20 years."
Subsequently, it agreed with the two runners-up, the centre-left secular Congress for the Republic and Ettakatol, to co-operate in the Assembly and to share the three highest positions in state. Accordingly, Ennahda supported the election of Ettakatol's secretary-general Mustapha Ben Jafar as President of the Constituent Assembly, and of CPR-leader Moncef Marzouki as Interim President of the Republic. The latter, in exchange, immediately appointed Ennahda's secretary-general Hamadi Jebali as Prime Minister.