Ennahda defection

After Hamadi Jebali's resignation, criticism by Abdelfattah Mourou and Samir Dilou, Ennahda is facing another critical test. But this time it's a real defection that is likely to deal a heavy blow to the Islamist party and tear apart the deceitful veneer of unity that Rached Ghannouchi so assiduously tried to preserve.
Just a few weeks ago, the Islamist leader vowed that his party stayed united. But reports of deepening rifts between the party's hardliners and so-called moderates pervaded the media. Mourou's revealing and brutally honest remarks about the party's failures drew the ire of the party leadership but rang the first alarm that defections may start to pick up.
And here it is... The first defection from a philosopher, not only a party activist but one of the brains behind it. Abou Yaareb Marzouki resigned from the Constituent Assembly on March 6th.
On his Facebook page, Marzouki said that the Ennahda's greatest failure was its inability to govern the affairs of the party and doling out portfolios to "the relatives, friends and the loved ones". The words ring bitterly familiar, as the same accusations were levelled against the infamous Trabelsi clan that ruled Tunisia like a family estate. The veneer of incorruptibility that Ennahda capitalized on while riding to power is now dissipating.
"If the party had put the right people in the right places, it would have sacked most of its current ministers," Marzouki said. He noted tensions within the tripartite coalition, where "each one considers himself the leader". Moreover, Marzouki said that "the discourse of the party is so loaded with religion that their political meetings have turned into sermons". He blamed the party for fighting "the evil with the evil, corruption with corruption" and acting "contrary to its principles".
This should be a great wake-up call for Ennahda leadership. It is no longer possible to hide that the once-potent structure is in deep trouble, plagued by divisions and popular dissatisfaction. The current impasse will only turn more people away from the party and empower the opposition, many of whom come from the Ben Ali era. One can only hope that it will not spell the beginning of the counter-revolutionary tide, and Ennahda leadership can launch some serious soul-searching to remedy the nation's most respected opposition structure and acknowledge failures.