Ennahda Movement in Power: A Long Path to Democracy

Abstract

The coming to power and subsequent loss of the Ennahda in Tunisia after the Jasmine revolution has created one of the most interesting scenarios in the Arab world. In fact, Tunisia has come out as an exception in the larger trend of failing states, civil war and re-emergence of authoritarian military leaders in the post-Arab Spring Arab world. This can be attributed to many factors including the pragmatic approach of the Ennahda leader Rached Gannouchi. The article tries to put the trajectories of Ennahda’s progress towards democratic process in historical perspective and concludes that it was partly the crisis in Egypt and other Arab countries that prompted Ennahda to make important concessions and seek recourse to democratic consensus building.