Tunisia’s Ennahda Movement, the most prominent branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in the country, has faced a marked decline in recent years, both politically and organizationally, amid a shrinking support base and growing public rejection of its ideological and political trajectory.
This decline comes more than 14 years after Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, which erupted in protest over economic hardship, social stagnation, and the absence of freedoms. For many Tunisians, hopes for change have since been dashed, with some key sectors deteriorating even further.
Founded clandestinely in 1972, “Ennahda” evolved from a banned religious movement under presidents Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali into a political party after 2011. While publicly declaring a separation between religious and political activity, it maintained tacit ties with the international Muslim Brotherhood, evident in the attendance of its leaders at global Brotherhood gatherings, particularly after the fall of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government in 2013.
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From Revolution to Decline
Political analyst Bassel Torjeman argues that, like other Islamist parties that emerged after the Arab Spring, Ennahda faced the reality that it neither embraced democracy nor accepted the peaceful transfer of power.
He told +963 that the movement’s rise was part of a broader regional arrangement to promote Islamist rule after the Arab uprisings, but its eventual collapse was the natural outcome of its “errors and missteps” following Ben Ali’s ouster.
Ennahda’s refusal to rotate leadership, Torjeman added, was a key internal flaw. The long tenure of its leader, Rached Ghannouchi, under a culture of “pledging allegiance,” weakened the party’s credibility and eroded trust among its base.
As a result, many supporters abandoned the party, disillusioned by the gap between its declared principles and its governance record.
Electoral Decline
Ennahda’s political setbacks were visible at the ballot box in Tunisia’s first post-revolutionary parliamentary election in 2011. The party secured 89 out of 217 seats, dominating the Constituent Assembly and raising high hopes among its followers.
But by 2014, its tally dropped to 69 seats, placing it second behind Nidaa Toune Party with 85. By 2019, Ennahda’s share fell further to just 52 seats, signaling a steady erosion of its popular base and political influence.
Mohamed Hnid, professor at the Sorbonne University in Paris, told +963 that Ennahda today is in a state of “hibernation”, paralysed by the arrests or prosecutions of many of its leaders, coupled with its failure to manage Tunisia’s fragile democratic transition after 2011.
“Ennahda long survived repression as an opposition group, but governing was different,” he explained. “As part of the ruling system, its mismanagement alienated the public and weakened its grassroots.”
Hnid noted that some of the harshest criticism of Ennahda now comes from its own former leaders, pointing to its inability to pass key legislation such as the Constitutional Court law and transitional justice measures.
The movement’s future, he added, remains uncertain. Without serious internal reforms or a renewed message, Ennahda faces little chance of regaining its lost influence.
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Legal and Political Challenges
Ennahda’s troubles have deepened with mounting legal cases. In July, a Tunisian court sentenced several figures, including Rached Ghannouchi, to prison terms ranging from 12 to 35 years in connection with the so-called “Conspiracy Against State Security 2” case.
Other senior figures, such as Ghannouchi’s son-in-law and former foreign minister Rafik Abdessalem, and Nadia Akacha, former chief of staff to President Kais Saied, received 35-year sentences in absentia while living abroad.
Earlier in April, more than 40 defendants, including prominent opposition leaders, were handed sentences ranging from 13 to 66 years in another high-profile “state security” trial, an unprecedented development in Tunisia’s political history.
