Ghannouchi's arrest lays bare Tunisia's divided opposition

It was always coming. On the 17th of April, during the 27th night of Ramadan, Rached Ghannouchi, leader of the Islamist party Ennahda, was arrested at his home.

Since President Kais Saied dissolved parliament and granted himself full powers in 2021, the former speaker of the House of Representatives had been held for questioning for a total of 70 hours.

At least thirty political opponents of the Tunisian president have been arrested and detained since February, including journalists, political figures, and unionists from across the political spectrum.

Most of those arrests were based on the same charges; plotting against the state - an unclear accusation that hints that the detentions were politically motivated.

"The vast majority of Tunisians and people around the world are realising that Kais Saied is killing all political activity in Tunisia"

Following Ghannouchi's arrest the intention became clear, as the government moved to ban Ennahda from any political activities and close their headquarters.

Local and international rights groups have described the arrests as a political witch hunt. 

"The vast majority of Tunisians and people around the world are realising that Kais Saied is killing all political activity in Tunisia," Yousra Ghannouchi, daughter of the Islamist leader, told The New Arab.

She says that a hundred security officers raided their home and took her father without providing any explanation. Saied’s political opponents are being detained, she says, because they have become a threat to his authoritarian regime.

"The National Salvation Front managed to unite people from all around the political spectrum. It is specifically because of that progress that Kais Saied launched this arrest campaign," Ghannouchi said. 

The National Salvation Front was founded in May 2022 and managed to unite a diverse coalition of political parties to oppose Kais Saied's coup.

In the past year, they have organised dozens of protests in Tunis, Sfax, and abroad against the authoritarian crackdown. Many of their senior leaders have been arrested since February, including Jawher Ben Mbarek, Rached Ghannouchi, and Chaima Issa.

However, the coalition, led by former Ben Ali opponent Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, has not managed to unite all of Tunisia’s political opposition.

Yousra Ghannouchi hopes the UGTT, Tunisia's largest trade union, will take a bigger role in the opposition as they have become more critical of Kais Saied in recent months.

In March, a thousand trade unionists protested in the streets of Tunis against Kais Saied's regime. "There is hope the UGTT could be part of the solution. When you look at their political position two years ago, they progressively became more [against] Kais Saied. That's why the president moved to target them."

Rym Mahjoub is a senior leader of the liberal party Afek Tounes. The party president, Fadhel Abdelkafi, was banned from traveling last year. Afek Tounes is critical of Kais Saied's regime but chose to participate in the constitutional referendum campaign last year, while most opposition groups called for a boycott.

"Tunisia's opposition has been unable to find a common strategy against the return of authoritarian rule"

The approved constitution gave full powers to the president and put an end to the parliamentary Tunisian system. "We cannot work with Ennahda as we consider them responsible for the country's political situation," explained the former MP, claiming that the National Salvation Front is Ennahda’s smokescreen.

"Kais Saied has managed to transform Ghannouchi into a political prisoner. They are whitewashing him, while there are a lot of other reasons to prosecute him besides his opinions," Rym Mahjoub told The New Arab.

The Free Destourian Party, another political party opposing Kais Saied, has called for more severe measures against Islamist figures. The party is led by Abir Moussi, a former lawyer of deceased dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who ruled the country for more than 23 years.

"Rached Ghannouchi's arrest is a popular demand. He needs to be investigated for his money laundering and his links with terrorism," the former MP said on Facebook.

Another component of the opposition that remains divided when it comes to Ghannouchi is the left. Long-time opponents of Islamist parties such as Hamma Hammami, Secretary General of the Tunisian Workers' Party, have denounced the political arrests since February.

A leaked video last month showed the leader of the worker's party asking young activists to stop chanting slogans against Rached Ghannouchi, arguing that "It's not the moment. We are here to protest against the president".

But Tunisia’s opposition has been unable to find a common strategy against the return of authoritarian rule, a situation made more difficult by the fact that Kais Saied still enjoys some popularity, with recent polls showing a 40% approval rating amongst Tunisians.

In recent Tunisian history, divisions within the opposition are hardly new. Under Ben Ali's dictatorship, political opponents were extremely divided until the creation of the 18 October 2005 collective, a platform uniting Islamist and leftist groups against dictatorship.

The goal, as written in 'Our Path Towards Democracy', a book published in 2007 by the collective, was "to go beyond differences, ideologies and party logics in order to fight for freedom and democracy".

This structure took more than a decade in order to find common ground and the context was different as most of those figures, such as Rached Ghannouchi or former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki, were forced into exile by Ben Ali's regime. 

Monica Marks, professor of Middle East politics at New York University Abu Dhabi, explains why Ghannouchi's arrest is difficult to navigate for Tunisia’s political opposition.

"Political opponents of Kais Saied face a dilemma: taking the risk of defending an unpopular victim or leaving behind their democratic principles and hoping they won't be the next ones arrested"

"It's easy to defend popular victims, but there is no more unpopular victim than Rached Ghannouchi. He's at the very bottom of every poll," the Middle East and North Africa specialist told The New Arab.

Last year, a SIGMA poll showed that 88% of Tunisians do not trust Rached Ghannouchi, making him the least-liked politician in the country.

Marks adds that Ennahda and Rached Ghannouchi are the victims of intense misinformation over the last decade on issues such as the murder of Chokri Belaid, a popular leftist politician, and facilitating the arrival of jihadists to Syria.

"As scholars, we don't have any evidence of that, but perception is often reality, and a lot of people in Tunisia actually believe that. If you actually believe Ghannouchi has blood on his hands, it's going to make you less eager to defend him," Marks told TNA.

The academic warns that any potential opponent of Kais Saied who is willing to turn a blind eye to Ghannouchi's arrest is also at risk.

"They are putting carts before the horses. They are thinking of their public perception in case Tunisia ever goes back to democracy, while we are entering ever darker depths of authoritarian rule," she added. 

Political opponents of Kais Saied, therefore, face a dilemma: taking the risk of defending an unpopular victim or leaving behind their democratic principles and hoping they won't be the next ones arrested.

But while the opposition searches for answers, Kais Saied is continuing to dismantle what was once known as the only democracy in the Arab world.

Amine Snoussi is a political analyst based in Tunis.

Follow him on Twitter: @amin_snoussi