Hamed Karoui, former Prime Minister of Tunisia from 1989 to 1999 and also deputy head of the ruling Rally Party (RCD) until 2008, is making a political comeback.  Like many of his former colleagues, he has a new “look,” and a new political party –Constitutional Movement (CM).

Hamed Karoui, former Prime Minister of Tunisia from 1989 to 1999 and also deputy head of the ruling Rally Party (RCD) until 2008, is making a political comeback.  Like many of his former colleagues, he has a new “look,” and a new political party –Constitutional Movement (CM).

In his media interviews since establishing his party, Karoui has defended Ben Ali’s regime and leveled accusations against his opponents, which has outraged political activists who believe that his return at this very moment is not so innocent. They also accuse the journalists who interview RCD members of “attempting to clean and polish their pasts.” 

Karoui, however, has said the decision to dissolve the RCD was a “political mistake committed by leftists who went too far when they pushed for adopting Article 15 of the Election Law to stop former officials from running in elections.”  Karoui claims the law excludes qualified people and describing them as “victims of collective punishment.”

“Corruption was only practiced by some members of Ben Ali’s family while the ministers had nothing to do with it,” Karoui insisted, adding that he and other ministers were interrogated by the judiciary and were acquitted of all corruption charges.

He admits only to RCD members’ political responsibility for a dictatorship to which they contributed by remaining silent. “No one could challenge Ben Ali,” said Karoui.

Despite the criticisms leveled against his political history, Karoui sometimes opposed Ben Ali’s policies, including his demands of licensing the Ennahda Movement and other parties in the early 1990s and opposing the regime’s security policies. He added that his CM colleagues and many Ennahda leaders knew these positions very well.

A victim of the revolution?

Karoui is back after being absent for more than six years. and describes himself as a victim of the revolution. This return, says Karoui, is due to reviews RCD members made for three years, making them more capable of practicing politics “without repeating their past mistakes.”

As for the repeated demands of former opponents of Karoui and his colleagues to offer a formal apology or at least self-criticism, he says it is impossible to do so now because his party and the other parties headed by former RCD leaders are planning to run for the upcoming elections and should not waste their time on self-criticism. “Besides, no party would do such a thing in the run-up to the elections,” he explained.

To prove his viewpoint, he referred to the Ennahda which had prepared its self-criticism but had not published it since “it is unreasonable for a party to harm itself before the elections.”

He says that the RCD is not solely to blame for what happened in Tunisia including the conflict between the followers of Bourguiba and of Salah Ben Youssef or between the RCD and the Islamists. “All political factions, including the Islamists, should offer apologies,” he said.

With the elections approaching, Karoui is concerned about is his party’s election campaign coming to power within an alliance of the victorious parties. If he and his allies do not win the elections, they will only be part of the criticizing group. 

He refuses to deem his party as a mere complement to other ones “as is the case with the Congress for the Republic Party to the Ennahda.” He however believes that it is better for the country to be ruled by a coalition of all political powers since the current situation is not yet ripe for power alternation. 

For Karoui, the upcoming elections are nothing like the previous ones he said, since RCD members will openly criticize their past actions and apologize for allowing their party to turn from a dominant party into a dictatorial one.