Excerpt
Facing public anger and internal divisions after the assassination of an opposition leader, Tunisia’s largest Islamist party, which leads a governing coalition, blamed the news media, secular elites and the remnants of the old government for its troubles.
As Tunisians fretted about the specter of political violence, the party, Ennahda, did not seem to look inward. It strongly condemned the assassination, but did not see any blame for the anger in its own actions. But others did.
Its implacable critics renewed their charge that the killing was the result of Ennahda’s conservative religious agenda. Others, including supporters of the group, said the movement’s own missteps since coming to power contributed to the public outburst after the politician Chokri Belaid was gunned down last week. The group had lost confidence, some said, by focusing on power rather than on governing.
As tens of thousands took to the streets last week and Tunisia’s divisions were laid bare, many waited to see how Ennahda would respond. Would it reach out to find common ground with some of its critics, or would it retreat to its base of support? The challenge resonates here and in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood is facing even harsher questions about its rule.
Ennahda’s leader, Rachid al-Ghannouchi, dismissed the criticism, saying that the movement remained popular and that a majority of Tunisians were not afraid of his group. “Just a tiny part of the aristocracy,” he said.
Nevertheless, the anger amounted to a humbling setback for Ennahda, which had been in the vanguard of Islamists seeking political power after the Arab uprisings two years ago and had held up its record of building political consensus as a model. After decades of being jailed, or forced underground or into exile by authoritarian leaders, the Islamist groups’ rise to power in Egypt and Tunisia has been swift. So has the reckoning on their rule.
“They thought that governing would be easy,” said Abou Yaareb Marzouki, a philosophy professor who is close to Ennahda. “And they imagined that through governance, they will reject forced modernism,” he said, referring to what he called a policy of westernization under colonial rulers and authoritarian governments. But Ennahda and the Brotherhood had swung too far in the opposite direction, he suggested, imposing “forced easternization.”
Since the uprising against President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali two years ago, Ennahda has insisted that whatever the results of elections, it would rule with others and had no intention of imposing a conservative religious agenda. After winning a plurality in Tunisia’s first elections, the party formed a coalition with the center left.
Facing challenges that would test any government, the coalition became noted for its incompetence, failing to dent the economic crisis or reform institutions.
Ennahda was accused of coddling ultraconservatives, known as Salafis, some of whom have been tied to a string of violent episodes.
The blame intensified after the killing of Mr. Belaid, who had received death threats for his criticisms of Islamists. At his funeral on Friday, tens of thousands of mourners directed their anger at Ennahda and Mr. Ghannouchi, blaming them for fostering extremism and taunting the leader with an incendiary chant: “Slaughterer.”
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