In yet another setback for the Global Muslim Brotherhood, UK media is reporting on the defeat of the Ennahda Party of Tunisia in the current parliamentary elections. According to a report in The Guardian, the Party’s secular rival is expected to become dominant in the country’s parliament:
Ennahda Party
October 27, 2014 Tunisia’s Ennahda party, the first Islamist movement to secure power after the 2011 Arab spring revolts, has conceded defeat in elections that are expected to make its main secular rival the strongest force in parliament.
Official results from Sunday’s elections – the second parliamentary vote since Tunisians set off uprisings across much of the Arab world by overthrowing autocrat Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali – are still to be announced.
But a senior official at Ennahda, which ruled in a coalition until it was forced to make way for a caretaker government during a political crisis at the start of this year, acknowledged defeat by the secular Nidaa Tounes party.
‘We have accepted this result and congratulate the winner,’ Lotfi Zitoun, an Ennahda party official, told Reuters.
Zitoun said the party reiterated its call for a unity government, including Ennahda, in the interest of the country.
Earlier, an Ennahda source said preliminary tallies showed Nidaa Tounes had won 80 seats in the 217-member assembly, ahead of 67 secured by Ennahda. The Nidaa Tounes leader, Beji Caid Essebsi, had already said on Sunday night that there were ‘positive indications’ his party was ahead.”
The Ennahda Party of Tunisia is headed by Rachid Ghannouchi (many spelling variations) who can best be described as an independent Islamist power center who is strongly tied to the Global Muslim Brotherhood. Egyptian writer Amany Maged presents his view of the relationship between the Ennahda party and Ghannouchi to the Global Muslim Brotherhood:
Al-Nahda Party’s articles of association do not declare a link to the Muslim Brotherhood, but nor has it denied the connection. Some sources maintain that it was ideologically and organisationally inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood, whereas others say that while Ghannouchi considers the Muslim Brotherhood an ally, he does not see it as having any authority, be it hierarchical or moral, over his own movement. Yet the fact remains that Ghannouchi, Al-Nahda’s founder, is a member of the International Guidance Bureau of the Muslim Brotherhood.Al-Nahda shares a number of traits with the Muslim Brotherhood. Both, says Islamist expert Ali Abdel-Aal, have a strong organisational capacity and access to substantial funds.
The UK-based Henry Jackson Society has published a report titled “Moderates or Manipulators? Tunisia’s Ennahda Islamists” detailing the extremist positions and statements of the Ennahda Party and Rachid Ghannouchi.
