Tunisia: "Complicity between Nidaa Tounes and Ennahda"

"For even though purely economic and social questions were at the origin of the revolution, over the past five years, public debate has focused on the place of religion in society and on demands for freedom...

Five years on, disappointment is rampant. The economy continues to flounder:  the rate of growth for 2015 is 0.5 percent. To stimulate the economy, Beji Caïd Essebsi came up with a law meant to promote economic reconciliation. Ostensibly, the idea was to favor investments by restoring confidence. In fact, it was meant to suspend the prosecution of business executives for fraudulent activities under the Ben Ali regime.  For many Tunisians, this law, not yet approved by parliament, looks more like an amnesty, a whitewashing of corrupt practices. All the more so as the break with the past did not happen and the DCR networks, which had been keeping a low profile, are active again under the cover of Nidaa Tounes...

This return to the political past is expressed in neo-authoritarianism, societal conservatism, and a general moralizing mood all seem much to the liking of Ennahda, which is now a full-fledged partner of the party that outstripped it in the 2014 elections. Part of society is worried about this new arrangement and wonders what happened to the revolution."