He is the most prominent opponent arrested in recent months in Tunisia. Regularly summoned by the courts in cases of "money laundering" or "terrorism", Rached Ghannouchi, the leader of the Islamic-conservative party Ennahda, was arrested on Monday (April 17th) at his home near Tunis.

The former president of the National Assembly, ousted from his post after the coup of President Kaïs Saïed in July 2021 and the dissolution of Parliament, is targeted after a speech held on April 15 during which he warned against "a civil war" in case of marginalization of political Islam, a movement from which his party emerged.

An Islamist figure of the first hour hunted by the power of President Habib Bourguiba (1957-1987), Rached Ghannouchi created a political party in the movement of the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1980s. Forced into exile in London for more than 20 years, he nevertheless retained the presidency of Ennhada ("Renaissance"), a formation then banned in Tunisia.

On January 30, 2011, fifteen days after the fall of President Ben Ali, he made his comeback to the country, welcomed by thousands of supporters who saw him as the man for the job to lead the democratic transition.

'A fool of power'

In a few months, Ennahda rose to the top. The party won 89 seats out of 217 in the October 2011 constituent elections, Tunisia's first democratic vote. At its head, Rached Ghannouchi, a past master in the art of compromise, knows how to make himself indispensable for a decade on the Tunisian political scene, even if it means forging alliances of circumstance, even unnatural.

For example, in 2014, when he governed hand in hand with the secular Nidaa Tounes party of the late President Beji Caid Essebsi or in 2019, when he became president of the National Assembly thanks to an agreement with the liberal Qalb Tounes party.

"Ghannouchi is crazy about power, a fine politician and clearly a very intelligent person who knew how to compromise, move forward when necessary and back down at the right time," said Pierre Vermeren, professor of contemporary history of Arab-Berber societies at Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. "He saw himself as a kind of Tunisian Erdogan with the aim of making the country an Islamic Republic," added the specialist in Tunisian politics, referring to the Turkish president.

Anti-parliamentary rhetoric

Today, many Tunisians feel that the promises of the 2011 Revolution have not been kept. As the country sinks into a deep institutional and economic crisis, a large part of public opinion considers Rached Ghannouchi and Ennahda responsible for the current situation.

"The Islamists have lost much of their popularity in the country because they have not conducted a real economic and social policy," said sociologist Vincent Geisser, a researcher at the CNRS. For a majority of Tunisians, Rached Ghannouchi is the "number 1 cause of the failure of the democratic transition", abounds Pierre Vermeren. "He is therefore an ideal scapegoat for President Saïed."

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By targeting Rached Ghannouchi, the Tunisian president is attacking a divisive personality and "a symbol of the parliamentary regime that he absolutely wants to see disappear. It is also a symbol of corruption and elites who would have worked to weaken Tunisian sovereignty," Geisser said.

Rached Ghannouchi has been under investigation since June for suspected corruption and money laundering related to transfers from abroad to the charity Namaa Tunisia, affiliated with Ennahda.

The president's "best opponent"

According to experts, Rached Ghannouchi appears to be the best enemy of the Tunisian president, whose traditional and conservative values he shares. "Rached Ghannouchi supported Kaïs Saïed's campaign in 2019, initially thinking he could manipulate him. But the latter, once in power, finally broke with him and made him his best opponent," recalls Pierre Vermeren.

Like the rest of the opposition, Rached Ghannouchi and Ennahda also seem to be very weakened not only because of the repression carried out by the Tunisian government but also because of a deep internal crisis. Running out of funding, the party has been losing leaders, activists and voters for several years. "Rached Ghannouchi is now quite alone, international support has frayed, Tunisian public opinion has also changed a lot," said Pierre Vermeren, who evokes a collapse of the political scene in the country.

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"With the arrest of Rached Ghannouchi, Kaïs Saïed wants to deal a blow to a party that is already experiencing an internal crisis but which bothers it because it remains well established territorially," continues Vincent Geisser.

A day after Ghannouchi's arrest, Tunisian authorities closed Ennahda offices throughout the country, a party official said Tuesday.

This repression is part of an authoritarian and repressive turn of Kaïs Saïed's regime. Since February 2023, fifteen opposition figures have been placed in pre-trial detention, including former ministers, businessmen and the boss of the country's most listened to radio, Mosaïque FM.

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