On December 31, 2020, in Tunis, authorities apprehended the Ennahdha vice-president and former justice minister—a confidant of party leader and presidential adversary Rached Ghannouchi. Samir Dilou, a former Ennahdha deputy, recounted to Agence France-Presse that plainclothes officers in two vehicles detained Noureddine Bhiri near his wife’s El Manar residence.
Dilou stated that the Ennahdha vice-president was taken to an undisclosed location. The officers also confiscated the mobile phone belonging to his wife, Saïda Akremi, a lawyer.
The Interior Ministry declared the home confinement of two individuals, citing a preventative measure to safeguard national security, without revealing identities.
Ennahdha issued a statement condemning the arrest as an abduction and a grave precedent, characterizing it as a slide toward authoritarian rule and extrajudicial suppression of opposition. According to Zeineb Brahmi, the party’s legal representative, the detention occurred without authorization from judicial authorities.
A Public Opinion Gathering
This incident is another chapter in the conflict between Ennahdha and President Kais Saied, stemming from Saied’s July 25, 2020 decision to dismiss the prime minister and suspend Parliament—controlled by Ennahdha for a decade—citing political and economic gridlock.
Various groups and political foes, including the influential UGTT trade union, criticized the president’s actions as a power grab. This includes former President Moncef Marzouki, sentenced in absentia on December 22, 2020, to four years imprisonment for alleged threats to national security from abroad, following public criticism of the Tunisian government from Paris.
The President’s Dubious Consultation
President Saied pledged legislative elections in December 2022, following a revision of electoral laws and a July 2022 referendum to revamp the Constitution, aiming for a more presidential system at Parliament’s expense. An online platform, launched January 1, 2022, was designed to collect citizens’ input on reforms until March 20.
Given that only 45% of Tunisian homes have internet access, alternative methods through local committees were provided. Critics dismiss this as a populist maneuver by the president, who secured nearly 73% of the vote in 2019 and maintains considerable public approval.
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