Tunisia’s main party holds huge rally as government row grows

Tunisia’s main party holds huge rally as government row grows

TUNIS: Tunisia's biggest political party assembled an immense crowd of supporters in the capital on Saturday in a show of strength that could fuel a dispute between the president and the prime minister. In one of the biggest demonstrations since Tunisia's 2011 revolution, tens of thousands of Ennahda supporters marched through central Tunis chanting "The people want to protect institutions!" and "The people want national unity!." The dispute has played out against a grim backdrop of economic anxiety, disillusionment with democracy and competing reform demands from foreign lenders and the UGTT, the powerful main labor union, as debt repayments loom. Ennahda, a moderate Islamist party led by Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi, has backed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi in a standoff with President Kais Saied over a cabinet reshuffle. Banned before the revolution, it has been a member of most governing coalitions since then and, although its share of the vote has fallen in recent years, it still holds the most seats in parliament. "Nationalists, Islamists, democrats and communists," Ghannouchi told the crowd, "we were gathered together during the dictatorship ... and we must unite again." The most recent election, in 2019, delivered a fragmented parliament while propelling Saied, an independent,