Political parties that struggled under Ben Ali’s tenure were finally able to breathe freely after the 2011 revolution and get a short taste of leadership. Since Tunisia’s October 26 legislative elections, however, these parties may now be facing extinction. What did them in? Most likely their alliance with Ennahda.
Although Ennahda lost its majority in the parliament, it still occupied the second spot after Nidaa Tounes. Yet the Islamist party’s two allies—The Congress and Tatakol parties— suffered the brunt of the defeat.
Political parties that struggled under Ben Ali’s tenure were finally able to breathe freely after the 2011 revolution and get a short taste of leadership. Since Tunisia’s October 26 legislative elections, however, these parties may now be facing extinction. What did them in? Most likely their alliance with Ennahda.
Although Ennahda lost its majority in the parliament, it still occupied the second spot after Nidaa Tounes. Yet the Islamist party’s two allies—The Congress and Tatakol parties— suffered the brunt of the defeat.
Congress party kicked out of congress
Previoulsy the stars of the Constituent Assembly elections in 2011, gaining votes from modernists and progressives, as well as cultural and intellectual elites who supported the party because of its history of struggle under Ben Ali’s repressive regime, The Congress Party, party of interim President Moncef Marzouki, won only four seats this time around.
Following the October 2011 elections, the party was given the option to enter into an alliance with Ennahda, which lured it with promises of support in the Constituent Assembly to eventually reach Carthage Palace—which actually happened.
However, this halfblooded alliance between secularists and Islamists came at a high price. This only further deepened the state of divide and fragmentation in the party—two parties split from it and formed the al-Wafaa (Loyalty) Movement led by Abdel-Raouf Ayadi, one of the historical symbols of the Congress party and the Democratic Stream Party, led by former party Secretary-General Mohammed Abbou.
In the new parliament, the Congress Party will find itself a minority abandoned by the masses. Moreover, Moncef Marzouki, the president of the party as well as the current president of the republic, will struggle in the upcoming presidential elections, as he will have no popular base.
A party of the past
The Tatakol Party was also dealt a harsh electoral blow, having won 20 seats in the 2011 elections down to one single seat in the current parliament. Mustapha Ben Jaafar, the party’s leader and president of the Constituent Assembly in the last three years, will also face an uphill battle in the upcoming presidential race competing amongst 27 candidates supported by their popular bases and their parties. Ben Jaafar, however, will carry only with him the failure of his party, and his crushing defeat in the parliamentary elections.
Tatakol had promised its supporters in the October 23, 2011 elections that it would not enter into an alliance with Ennahda, but it did not keep its promise and angered its popular base.
Now, Mustapha Ben Jaafar, Takatol’s head, and a candidate for the presidential elections, finds himself in an embarrassing situation.
The leaders of Tatakol stressed the role its party played in suspending the Constituent Assembly after the assassination of MP Mohammed Brahmi on July 25, 2013 and thereby avoiding the complete collapse of the government.
Still the 20-year-old party that endured the worst under Ben Ali is now collapsing Mustapha Ben Jaafar can do little apart from watch it happen. Its popular base has abandoned it and the Ennahda Movement considers it a part of the unregrettable past.
A party that lost its voice
No one in Tunisia ever expected the dramatic end to former Communist party, al-Masar. Long described in Tunisia as the party of elites, and attracted membership from famous writers, artists and trade unionists’, found itself at the margins of the new political map formed after the recent elections.
The centrist Republican Party, which led the opposition in the Constituent Assembly in the last three years, also fell from grace when it won only one seat in the new parliament.
The historic leaders of the party, such as its Secretary-General Maya Jribi and Najib Chebbi, suddenly found themselves outside the political scene, desperate to find a way back in.
