Ali Al-Areedh, Vice-President of the Ennahda Movement and the former Prime Minister, talks - in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera Net - about the future of the country and the movement after the President of the Republic extended the exceptional measures and the continued freezing of Parliament. Ghannouchi for the presidency of Parliament.
What is your position on President Qais Saeed's decision to extend the exceptional measures and the continued freezing of Parliament?
The decision was expected, but interpretations were directed towards his move to suspend the constitution or to put forward a road map and announce a prime minister, and all of this did not happen. The president took all the powers and practically canceled the work of the institutions, which will increase the country’s going towards paralysis, the unknown, and chaos of all kinds.
We are still saying that Qais Saeed is a legitimate president, despite our appreciation that he deviated from the constitution in a large part of it, and we say that whatever the intentions of rulers and leaders, if they gather power, they turn into tyrants, and history is witness to that.
Many blame Ennahda for what is happening today because of your failure to establish the Constitutional Court over the past years so that the president can then take advantage of this legal vacuum and become the sole source of the constitution.. What do you think?
The easiest thing is to hold us accountable, but even if the Constitutional Court does not exist, there is no justification for violating the constitution, and this is not what I say, but rather the experts of constitutional law unanimously agree.
Unfortunately, there is an idea that is intended to be perpetuated as a fallacy;
It is that Al-Nahda is solely responsible for this situation, and the case is that some of the state’s wheels were disrupted because of the President of the Republic himself. Parliament?
I also say that no matter how the president tries to evade responsibility, he remains one of the contributors to the state of affairs, and I see that the attempt of many to misrepresent the Ennahda movement with responsibility for political, economic and social failure is a kind of populism.
But the Ennahda movement admitted in its statements and on the words of its leaders that it bears part of the responsibility for what the situation has become?
We do not deny that we were part of the authority, but what we reject is the mentality that wants to reduce 10 years of rule to the Renaissance and dress it up with all the mistakes, as if no one else ruled.
In any case, we have admitted our mistakes and are striving for reform and rectification, while I do not explicitly see any party, president or social organization admitting its mistakes.
Another important thing, which is that Ennahda is in the process of carrying out revisions, and we keep in mind the upcoming electoral conference, and we want to review our policies and our discourses, but we refuse to be a scapegoat and a peg on which others can hang their mistakes and failures.
Ali Al-Arid: Ghannouchi was clear and confirmed that he would not run for the presidency of Ennahda after completing the two terms (Al-Jazeera)
Do the reviews include the fate of Ghannouchi at the head of the movement?
Sheikh Rashid was clear, and confirmed that he would not run again for the presidency of Ennahda after he terminated the two terms, according to the text of the movement's basic law.
There are those who believe that the positions of the Renaissance and its statements are confused and contradictory.
After you described what happened as a coup, we noticed another description in a post attributed to Ghannouchi, during which he called for making the "July 25 procedures an opportunity for reform"?
When President Qais Saeed announced his decisions on July 25, we were in a press conference, and I and other leaders considered that what had happened was a coup and a violation of the constitution, which is actually the correct legal description, but then we set out to search for political exits.
He explained here that one of the brothers in the Renaissance took Ghannouchi's words out of context, and published a post on the page, to be then deleted to avoid any misunderstanding.
What is your position on the president’s explicitly saying that Parliament is a perilous danger to the state, and that it is not a sign to go and prepare for its dissolution?
I see them as unreassuring negative indicators about the fate of this sovereign institution, and it can be said that Parliament made mistakes and gave a bad image of democracy, but just as there was verbal violence within it, the President of the Republic, on his part, did not stop broadcasting speeches of violence, incitement and treason.
Do you share - albeit relatively - what many people said, even from within Ennahda, that Ghannouchi's candidacy for the presidency of Parliament was the biggest mistake for which the movement and the country paid a heavy price?
The leader of the movement consulted a number of brothers in the council about whether to run for office or not, and he took their opinion, but in the midst of that we have to admit that there is a systematic targeting of any renaissance leadership that occupies a lofty position in the state institutions. We are not committed to Ghannouchi remaining at the head of Parliament, and we will evaluate that period, and if we find that his stepping down from this position will mark the beginning of a détente and a return to before July 25, we are ready to discuss the matter.
It is also important to make it clear that when we asked the President of the Republic to end the work of exceptional measures and return to the normal situation, we did not mean the return of Parliament as it was, or that the government return to what it was, but rather the Parliament returns with mutual obligations, who will manage it, and how will work within it;
All of these are discussed because our goal is the survival of democracy.
In your opinion, how can we get out of this crisis in light of what is described as the "obstinacy" of the president and his refusal to dialogue with the parties and with Ennahda in particular?
The solution, I believe, is the president's demand by national organizations and political and party figures to shorten this exceptional period, and we warn that we are going towards an authoritarian, dictatorial individual rule, whatever the president's intentions. towards the unknown.
There are those who believe that Saeed's legitimacy, which he gained with overwhelming popularity, approached 90%, according to the latest opinion poll, is sufficient to nullify the legitimacy of the constitution. What do you think?
There is no measure of legitimacy or legitimacy without resorting to the ballot box. As for opinion polls, they change, and if anyone wants change, there are democratic mechanisms, away from individualism and the desire to accumulate powers.
A state of anger prevailed among your bases after the statement in which you expressed your willingness to take disciplinary measures against anyone who is proven to have offended the President of the Republic through the communication networks, and there are those who argue that the leaders of the movement again throw their supporters into the Holocaust whenever the noose is narrowed in search of individual salvation?
I understand some who have gone to this interpretation, but the statement never meant it;
It is established that the movement noticed the tendency of some parties towards defamation, incitement and harm to the honor of people, including the President of the Republic and his family through social networks. Therefore, this behavior had to be condemned and alerted to, so that some of the movement’s members would not slip into this approach out of enthusiasm, and we mention That we have suffered from campaigns of distortion and defamation, and therefore we can not stop doing and do the same.
Ali Al-Arid: Ennahda's failure to use the street does not mean that it has lost its rules (Al-Jazeera)
But is it not understood from the statement that Al-Nahda is in a position of self-defense, and that the content of the statement contains a kind of "political cowardice and fear", as described by many of your bases?
Let us say that it is a kind of defense, in light of the attempts to “demonize” Ennahda by some of those surrounding President Qais Saeed and incite him against it, especially from the eradication line, whether from some faces of the former regime or from social organizations or from parties close to it that push it towards eradicating Ennahda and suspending work It is also a kind of legitimate fear for the country and the loss of all democratic gains.
Leaders from the Ennahda Shura Movement who are affiliated with the “Group of the Hundred” and angry at Ghannouchi’s performance;
They saw that his dissolution of the Executive Office without announcing his abandonment of leadership and assigning another figure to manage the party's political and internal crisis was a political evasion.. What is your response?
In general, I am not comfortable with bringing the internal kitchen discussions of the movement out to the public, and I consider it wrong, but I say that there are various opinions within the party, specifically in relation to the continuity of work in the current executive office or the need for an exceptional management and leadership method that fits with the current circumstance. Who resolved it at the time, while others - including the head of the movement - decided to wait, and the decision to dissolve was taken a few days ago, and it is only estimates and political jurisprudence.
Some note that the Ennahda movement and its bases who came out in the thousands on more than one occasion in defense of legitimacy and democracy - as they say - easily accepted the fait accompli. Is this attributed to a deliberate decision or that Ennahda no longer owns the street as it has always said?
I only remember that we were the ones who came before others to protect democracy in more than one station, and we gave up our rights and our positions, which cost us a lot. can continue.
The second thing is that Ennahda sensed that its conduct of any popular movement in front of Parliament will be exploited and monitored by known parties as an argument against us to push the country towards fighting and chaos.
I also stress that Ennahda's failure to use the street until now does not mean that it has lost its bases and popularity, but it is an assessment of the country's situation and the search for peaceful solutions.
Some commented on a scene of Ghannouchi on the night of July 25 asking a soldier to open the parliament gates for him, to respond to him by refusing, saying that he was an insulting image of him and his history?
Rather, it is an insulting image of Tunisia and not of Ghannouchi, and it will remain in history for an old man and Speaker of Parliament standing in front of the legislative institution he presides, asking permission from a soldier to enter, but his request from a national army whose original function is to protect sovereign institutions, including Parliament, is rejected. The incident?
Although the security could have done that task, this certainly has implications.
There are those who say that President Qais Saeed managed to lure the army and security to his side, and the two institutions are now “guaranteed.” What do you think?
It is established that our army is patriotic, and our security is republican, and they are far from any political activity, but they should not be involved in unconstitutional actions, because it destroys democracy.
Good intentions alone are not a guarantee that power will not be deviated. The security and military institutions must remain neutral, as we are accustomed to, and stay away from employment and implication. We warn that if the situation continues as it is, these two institutions may find themselves required to play roles that are not theirs.
What is your position on the accusations made by some Tunisian newspapers, and your accusation of conspiring with friendly countries to assassinate the president and carry out terrorist acts?
We have taken legal measures against the local newspaper and the author of the article, as the matter represents an incitement to civil war and unjustified harm to our relations with brotherly and friendly countries.
The good thing is that the Tunisian Foreign Minister denied these malicious accusations and rumors, but that alone is not enough, and the origin of it is a clarification from the President of the Republic, given that all the authorities are in his hands, so as not to interpret his silence in a different way, and he had to take measures against everyone who beg himself to tamper with national security Tunisia and our foreign relations.