Mohammed Ghiryani, former Secretary General of the Constitutional Democratic Rally party from 2008 until it was dissolved in March 2011, has been neither the first remnant of the former regime to be imprisoned nor the first to leave it.

Looking back, 52-year-old Ghiryani concedes that his party made some mistakes and has called upon its former leaders to apologize.  He served two years on charges of embezzlement and abuse of power, but the Tunisian court freed him based on a lack of evidence.

Conceding wrongdoing

Mohammed Ghiryani, former Secretary General of the Constitutional Democratic Rally party from 2008 until it was dissolved in March 2011, has been neither the first remnant of the former regime to be imprisoned nor the first to leave it.

Looking back, 52-year-old Ghiryani concedes that his party made some mistakes and has called upon its former leaders to apologize.  He served two years on charges of embezzlement and abuse of power, but the Tunisian court freed him based on a lack of evidence.

Conceding wrongdoing

Ghiryani is almost the only leader among the Old Guards who has said since his release from prison in July 2013 that dissolving the party was “an inevitable consequence of the revolution.” 

“The revolution requires a radical change that coincides with the rearrangement of political life in Tunisia,” he said.

Until his official apology for being part of the former regime, he stays away from the media spotlight and works as a consultant to the head of the Nidaa Tunis party headed by Beji Caid Essebsi.

Damage control

Ghiryani recalled the first days of toppling Ben Ali’s regime by stressing that a number of the party’s members criticized his political choices, including his yielding to dissolving the party without objection, to which he said he did to “Spare the country any further disasters.”

He further explained his reasons to support the dissolving the party and said Tunisia after 14 January 2011 no longer tolerated the existence of “One large party and other small ones.”

“It was imperative to rearrange the scene, either by dissolving the Rally or through the development of new rules that compel all parties to start from scratch,” he told Correspondents, “which requires equality in all possibilities and opportunities.”

However, he said such a breakthrough is not possible under an “unjust legacy,” and he was not against dissolving the party, but is critical of “the method used, which had no respect to legal regulations.”

His support in the party’s dissolution did not mean that he accepted all charges directed against it, he said. “It is a great party and the committed abuses were merely individualistic,” he said. Although he acknowledged the repressive nature of the former regime and the fact that the country has suffered corruption under its rule, he said it is the judiciary that punishes or clears offenders.

According to Ghiryani, the pattern of the former regime did not provide much freedom for the party in public life, but rather preferred institutions and governmental apparatuses. Presidential elections, for example, he said, were supervised by the Ministry of Interior, he claimed, where the party had no power to influence them.

Owning up

He called upon what he described the ‘constitutionalists’ to: “Perform necessary audits and self-criticism in addition to admitting their mistakes and adopting new political orientations to return to the practice of politics,” he said. “The Rally is rather an extension of the Constitutional Party led by Bourguiba, not a deviation.”

Such attitudes proclaimed by Ghiryani contradict his former comrades’ positions.  He acknowledged ‘the political accountability’ for the practiced repression and dictatorship and emphasized the ‘political’ nature of such accountability referring to the fact that the party “has not committed any violations in the criminal sense, but rather mistakes for which it should be held accountable.” For such mistakes, he said, he intends to apologize, as they include the practices of his party and the former regime in which he took part and were “against democracy and human rights.”

As for the accusations made against him personally including corruption and abuse of power for personal gains, he said: “The judiciary has appointed several experts to investigate my financial situation and they cleared me of any charge, which is normal since I have not had any power in any economic sectors.”

Ghiryani believes that everyone “Should recognize the revolution and live with it.” He also refused to call the return of the Old Guards to the political arena as ‘counter-revolution’. He further commented on the enrollment of a few members of the rally in other parties outside the constitutional orientation by saying movement in the field of politics is normal after conducting self-criticism.

Part I