Defectors from Tunisia’s Ennahda Seek to Form New Party

President Kais Saied presides over the first government meeting headed by Najla Bouden. (AFP)
President Kais Saied presides over the first government meeting headed by Najla Bouden. (AFP)
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Defectors from Tunisia’s Ennahda Seek to Form New Party

President Kais Saied presides over the first government meeting headed by Najla Bouden. (AFP)
President Kais Saied presides over the first government meeting headed by Najla Bouden. (AFP)

Dozens of figures, who resigned from the Ennahda movement, are preparing to establish a new political party, said Tunisian political sources.

The new party is expected to meet some of Ennahda’s intellectual and ideological views. However, according to the sources, it will not adopt the same strategy in dealing with politics and social organizations.

The new party will be “a middle ground” for everyone who believes in the identity of the “Arab Islamic Tunisian people.”

Abdelfattah Mourou, a former leading member of Ennahda, will chair the new party. The leadership will also include Abdellatif Mekki, Mohamed Ben Salem, Samir Dilou, and several lawmakers of the suspended parliament.

Several officials resigned from the Ennahda movement, headed by parliament Speaker Rached al-Ghannouchi, in protest against the leadership’s actions and stances.

They slammed the party for its lack of internal reforms and warned that the wrong choices led to the leadership’s isolation and failure to engage in any common front to confront President Kais Saied’s recent extraordinary measures.

Earlier this year, Saied invoked emergency powers under Article 80 of the constitution to sack Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, freeze parliament, lift the immunity of parliament members and make himself prosecutor general.

Secretary-General of the Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT) said that “there will be no return to autocracy” in reference to the expected political reforms being arranged by the presidency.

Speaking to the press during the “African Continental Free Trade Agreement,” Noureddine Taboubi underscored the demands for the formation of a political system that is not based on single rule, rejecting attempts to establish an autocracy.

Taboubi acknowledged disagreements with the presidency, noting: “We want a balanced government based on oversight, accountability, constitutional institutions and the rule of law.”



UN Human Rights Office: 798 People Killed while Receiving Aid in Gaza

Palestinians carry containers for water at a camp for the displaced in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians carry containers for water at a camp for the displaced in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
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UN Human Rights Office: 798 People Killed while Receiving Aid in Gaza

Palestinians carry containers for water at a camp for the displaced in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians carry containers for water at a camp for the displaced in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

The UN human rights office said on Friday that it had recorded at least 798 killings both at aid points run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and near humanitarian convoys run by other relief groups, including the UN.

The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel says had let militants divert aid.

The United Nations has called the plan "inherently unsafe" and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules.

"Up until the seventh of July, we've recorded now 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys," OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva, according to Reuters.

The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May and has repeatedly denied that incidents had occurred at its sites.