The fall of the Tunisian government should not only be seen as a failure of political Islam, the Brotherhood or the Ennahada Party, but also the politics of the whole of Arabia.  

[Tunisia/Google Map 2021]

There are three active characters in the field of politics in Arabia.  On one side of the stage is the main character of the Muslim Brotherhood created in Egypt and its branches in different countries.  The Brotherhood or its affiliates can only win elections in different countries.  But cannot hold power.  The only exception is Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.  In the middle of the stage is the part of the secular liberals.  Together with the Brotherhood, they fought against the authoritarian dictator.  Later, when the Brotherhood supporters formed the government, they also started a movement accusing them of failure.

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Liberals, despite the sympathy of the West, never came to the forefront of politics.  Rather, the Western-influenced military and civil society have become partners in power, sitting on the other side of the stage as the main protagonist.  The battle is mainly between the Muslim Brotherhood-backed parties and the Western-influenced elites.  Liberal secular forces also took part in this fight.  But the elite always won.  Consolidate their power.  The Arab countries are just running after the mirage of democracy.  The closer the Arabs try to get to democracy, the more democracy moves away.  Democratic governments in Arabia have not lasted very long.  In a handful of countries, Kalevadra came to power with the direct vote of the people, but after a few days, the authoritarian regime came to power again.

The Arab Spring brought down authoritarian dictatorships in both countries.  First Tunisia.  Then in Egypt.  But the elected government in Egypt did not last long.  It did not last more than 10 years in Tunisia.  Under the circumstances, Tunisia could return to pre-revolutionary politics in the Arab Spring.  Qais Said’s authoritarian rule could be further prolonged.  Qais has already taken control of all government institutions, the legislature, the executive branch and the judiciary.  But if Kayes alone fails to control Tunisia, civil war could break out.

With the outbreak of the civil war, the rise of militant groups such as Al Qaeda and Islamic State (IS) in Tunisia is inevitable.  This could lead to another battleground in Arabia.  Or, if Kais returns power to parliament within 30 days, Tunisia’s normal politics could begin.

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 That’s right, Tunisia’s ousted government has failed to deliver on many of its Arab Spring promises.  The number of unemployed was increasing day by day.  Meanwhile, Corona’s paw has further degraded the living standards of the people.  For these reasons, anti-government protests began to take root.  The next election would give the Tunisian people a chance to elect a new government.  But Ennahad’s supporters allege that the government was ousted by a special group and an outside force, leaving the people aside.

 The president himself and his supporters in the bureaucracy have seized power during the Corona.  Protesters stormed and set fire to Ennahadar’s office.  It seems that the target of the protesters is not the Prime Minister or his government;  They have targeted the Ennahada party.

 In the post-Arab Spring period, the Ennahada Party, a branch of the Brotherhood in Tunisian power politics, changed its political position and formed alliances with secular parties.  Although the Ennahada party favored the introduction of Sharia law in Tunisia, it eventually withdrew from its conservative position and a new constitution was introduced in 2014.  The new constitution includes issues of individual freedom, women’s rights and the rights of minorities.

 This is not the first time the Ennahada Party has been ousted from power;  The Ennahada Party withdrew from power in 2013 after the assassination of opposition leader Chakri Belaid.  The technocrat government was formed.  In the 2014 presidential election, the Ennahada party joined the secularists.  In that election, Beiji Saeed Esebi was elected.  Even in the last round of voting for the presidency in 2019, Ennahada supported Qais Saeed.

 Despite all this, Ennahada failed to win the confidence of Tunisian secularists.  Secular parties are in no way interested in sharing power with Ennahad.  The Tunisian incident proves that, despite being an Islamist party, Ennahada was as liberal in negotiating with the secularists as the liberal secular parties were in taking a hard line not to compromise with Ennahada.

After the fall of the Tunisian government, many are commenting that political Islam has failed.  In this case, they also mentioned the fall of the government of Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.  However, Brotherhood-backed parties have collapsed in the same way in both countries.  Protests forced the Morsi government in Egypt and the Tunisian government to step down.  But the government of Fatah Sisi, which came to power after Morsi in Egypt, has not been able to change the situation.  On the contrary, along with the economic crisis, repression has increased.

 As Morsi’s Justice and Development Party has maintained a bit of silence, the CCI government is now disappearing secularists.  The same fate is feared in Tunisia.  There is no guarantee that Qais Saeed will not emerge as the new Ben Ali soon;  Rather, he can move forward on the path of establishing dictatorship.  So in Egypt and Tunisia, not political Islam, but democratic forces are not being allowed to stand on tactics.

 It can be said that the problem is not political Islam, the problem is internal and regional political game.  Arab politics stands in a difficult equation.  If any party fails to run the government, a new government will come in the election.  If the Islamists can’t, secular power will come to power.  But in Arab countries, the path to elections has been blocked.  In these countries, the Brotherhood’s branches and organizations have a very deep base.  That is why they come to power in elections.  But liberal parties do not have the public support or political power to counter the Brotherhood.  So, even if elections are given in one or two countries from time to time, in a few years, they go back to authoritarian rule.

Therefore, the fall of the Tunisian government should not only be seen as a failure of political Islam, the Brotherhood or the Ennahada Party, but also the politics of the whole of Arabia.  There are allegations that the proxy power of the West, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt’s Sisi and Libya’s warlord Khalifa Haftar have a hand in the fall of the Tunisian government and the protests.  They are afraid that if there is a regular change of power in any Arab country through elections, a wave of democratic movement will start in other countries as well.

 The West also does not want a democratic government in Arabia.  The existence of Israel would be threatened if the government was elected by direct popular vote from Morocco to Iran.  So they do not allow democratic rule to last in any Arab country, not just Tunisia.  That is why the economic and political problems of Arabia are not solved, nor is there any liberation from authoritarian dictatorship.

The author Maruf Mallik is a political analyst  from BANGLADESH. 

[This article is translated from Prothom Alo]