Strategic Pluralization in Tunisia’s Islamist Politics

The access to power by Ennahdha in 2011 raised a number of questions not only regarding the capacity of the party to accept a democratic framework but also to handle its allegedly close relationship with fundamentalist groups in a democratic-minded orientation. As a new power-holder, could Ennahdha emerge as a ‘rational’ and democratic force in a context of a seemingly ‘Islamist boom’? What were the links between Ennahdha and more conservative movements like the Salafis? Ennahda’s management of the Salafis has in fact been quite ambiguous since 2011. Ennahdha was indeed simultaneously intent on channelling Salafis into institutional politics by vouching for the democratic commitment of the newly created Salafi parties (e.g. Jabhat al-Islah) while from time to time pointing at the Salafis as a fundamentalist group in order to present itself as a moderate alternative. Ultimately, this twofold strategy (unity-integration & stigmatisation/fragmentation) paved the way for Ennahdha’s defeat at the 2014 parliamentary elections given that its ambiguous relations with the Salafis led the party to lose both its political credibility vis-à-vis secularist forces (in fact this ambiguity was Nida Tounis’ most prominent argument during the electoral campaign, see Marks 2017) and its religious pedigree in the eyes of conservative forces like the Salafis The management of the conservative religious movements like the Salafis by Ennahdha therefore appeared as a key indicator of the democratization process. Ennahdha’s various backpedalling on the issues of men-women “complementarity”, blaspheme, and introduction of the shari’a into the constitution (triggering huge disagreements inside the party, which remain to be studied) appeared to many as a departure from previously Islamist positions that hitherto gained the party a relative support amongst conservative factions (notably the Salafis). Much has been written, consequently, on Ennahdha’s ideological evolutions since the revolution. What has not been looked at, however, is the extent to which the pluralization of Islamist politics (both inside and outside the party) has been either a consequence of these evolutions or a planned strategy for Ennahda’s normalization. That is: has Ennahdha’s alleged ideological transformation been the product or the cause of Islamist pluralization? In other words, to what extent Islamist fragmentation, through the clear demarcation between religious and political work, has been an instrument for regulating the Islamist political field? Our hypothesis is that the pluralization of Islamist politics following the revolution and the transition process consisted largely in a strategic division of labour between political-minded actors and religious-leaning groups. In other words, pluralization and fragmentation has partly been a deliberate way by Ennahdha to regulate the Islamist field by drawing a line between what the party focuses on and what it is permissible for other Islamist actors to do. In a word, this paper aims at identifying what, within the pluralization of Islamist politics, has to do with genuine disagreements and what relates to a planned strategy of specialization and redeployment of competences.