In recent weeks, numerous colleges witnessed electoral campaigns involving candidates from the leftist General Union of Tunisian Students (UGET), the Islamist-supporting General Tunisian Students Union (UGTE), and independents from “Tunisian Student’s Voice” lists. Union organizations competed for over 465 seats covering 12 universities in Tunisia. UGET won 36% of the seats, UGTE took 28% and independents won 34% of the seats.
In recent weeks, numerous colleges witnessed electoral campaigns involving candidates from the leftist General Union of Tunisian Students (UGET), the Islamist-supporting General Tunisian Students Union (UGTE), and independents from “Tunisian Student’s Voice” lists. Union organizations competed for over 465 seats covering 12 universities in Tunisia. UGET won 36% of the seats, UGTE took 28% and independents won 34% of the seats.
UGET’s victory was questioned by its permanent and ideological rival (the Islamists) about a lack of transparency in the electoral process, claiming that students were put under pressures and that the management was impartial.
Having been absent for more than two decades following a court order issued during the anti-Islamist campaign waged by Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s regime in the late 1990s to dissolve it, UGTE resumed its activities after the fall of the regime, which was associated with a declaration by the Islamic Ennahda Movement to revive “Ennahda Movement’s youth in the universities.” Their reappearance on the scene marked the return of intellectual and ideological conflicts within universities, as was the case during the 1980s and 1990s between the Islamic movement and UGET.
Islamists’ skepticism
Spokesman for UGTE Coordination Committee Rashid Kahlani claimed the elections held in the university were not fair, stressing that the management was impartial, professors pressured the students to make them vote in favor of the UGTE rivals, and the turnout was somehow small.
“This year, UGTE concentrated on students’ demands and problems, like housing and scholarships. We exerted great efforts, but the elections results did not measure up to the expectations of UGTE and its supporters. However, they were satisfactory considering the circumstances that characterized the electoral process, including impartial management and professors’ intervention to pressurize students and even threaten them with failing in order to get them to vote in favor of our rivals,” Kahlani explained.
Member of the Republican Party’s Executive Office and General Secretary of the UGET Federal Bureau Wisam Saghir said, “The elections results were a message from the educated youth to the government, and Ennahda in particular, to the effect that ‘You cannot manipulate our minds.’”
“The election results coincided with the announcement of Ali Laarayedh’s government, and came as a strong message that the aspirations of educated youth are contrary to Ennahda’s agenda, given that the party that has been defeated in the elections was its student arm,” he added.
Saghir denounced Islamists’ skepticism about the integrity of the elections, describing it as ‘a worse-than-guilt’ situation. He said UGTE should have investigated the root cause of its failure, instead of blaming others, emphasizing that it resorted to the same policy adopted by their party whereby it blamed others for its possible failures.
Politicization of universities
In the midst of the conflicts within the university campus and the attempts to control these tendencies and mobilize the largest possible number of students for promoting different ideologies, there are escalating demands to keep academic institutions away from political struggle. Islamists deny they are serving party agendas or practicing politics under the guise of union activity, while leftists consider these acts a normal practice, and cling to their right of adopting certain concepts and ideologies.
Kahlani denied the charges of politicizing UGTE, saying, “After the revolution, UGTE returned to the university through independent students, since even Ennahda’s students joined UGTE much later. But, by virtue of history and the contribution made by the youth of the Movement of the Islamic Tendency (currently Ennahda) to UGTE, some parties accuse us of serving Ennahda’s agenda within the university.”
NCA member for Ennahda Walid Banani said: “The university has been and will always be at the forefront, and it expresses the changes within the Tunisian society. The country’s circumstances are no longer the same as they were during the 1980s and 1990s. At present, there is a larger margin for freedom, and several issues, like unemployment and liberties, are being addressed. Besides, political police and students of former president’s party no longer exist.”
Having witnessed the political conflicts between Islamist and leftist students during the 1980s, Banani said: “There are numerous political movements within the university, and they are interested in transitional justice, freedom of expression, and union activity, but I believe the ideological conflicts will disappear at this stage.”
Our right
UGET Secretary General Ezzedine Zatour deemed the ongoing political disputes within the university a normal practice, and wished these disputes would return to what they had been like during the 1980s and 1990s. He stressed that students’ level declined as a consequence of the constraints imposed by the former regime on the university and its educational programs.
For his part, Saghir said: “Each union group has a cultural identity, and UGET is a progressive movement basically aims to establish a democratic progressive thinking and set the ground for a civil state. True, we definitely defend students’ material, moral and pedagogical interests, but I have the right to hold ideas and ideologies. If I do not adopt a particular ideology within the student movement now, when will I do so?”
“Political and human rights activists represent a large part of UGET, and this is not a flaw; on the contrary, there is a fine line between the unionist and political activities. They have many areas in common, and UGET does not disavow our political and intellectual affiliation because our ability to exercise union activities and realize students’ demands depends on reaching the political maturity stage,” he added.
He admitted however that it would be a source of concern if political action took precedence over union action inside the university and students’ confidence in their union organizations would be adversely affected. “Based on this understanding, I call upon my colleagues to maintain consistency between political and union action,” he said.
Ulterior motives
Hatem Nussairi, a student in the Faculty of Arts of Manouba University, considered both organizations trying to serve political parties outside the university, while disregarding the problems of students, whom they considered a mere numerical strength sought in time of need.
“I did not participate in the elections because the candidates of both organizations make too many promises during the electoral campaigns, such as finding solutions to the problem of university housing and students’ scholarships, but soon after announcing the elections results, they back out of the promises they made. The bottom line is that they simply serve parties’ interests,” Nussairi said.
UGET was founded in 1952 and its constituent assembly was held in Paris in July 1953, while UGTE first appeared in April 1985 and won official recognition in 1988. It was banned in May 1991 under the confrontation between the regime and the Movement of the Islamic Tendency.
The University of Tunis represents one of the most important centers, which political parties and movements vehemently try to control, given its influential and pioneering role inside the Tunisian society and in mobilizing the public, and its symbolic cultural and historical significance, and because it is a political card and a means of pressure whenever needed.
