Faisal Nasr:Ennahda will never resort to violence

Faisal Nasr, an information officer of Tunisia's ruling party, denied that his organisation had held military camps for the country's youth. A French reporter, Nicolas Beau, recently said that the Ennahda party had established military exercise camps in Tunisia, where more than 10000 of the Islamist movement's youth members were recruited. Nasr denied the charges in an interview with Arabstoday, saying: "Ennahda is a peaceful party and will never resort to violence." "We didn't resort to violence when we were oppressed by [ousted president Zine El Abidine] Ben Ali's regime, so why would we use violence when we are a main part of the ruling regime?" said Nasr. He added: "Such camps can't be hidden, we don't have mountains in Tunisia, and these camps would be very easy to recognise, and wouldn't require a French reporter to discover them." Nasr spoke about the troika government led by Ennahda in Tunisia, saying that the government had succeeded in improving the general conditions of the country, compared to the poor overall situation when the new government took over. "The statistics show nothing but the truth, economic growth is at an average of 4.8 percent in less than four months since the government took over, tourism is gradually reporting normal numbers and everyday there are delegations visiting Tunisia to discuss investment opportunities," said Nasr. Nasr said the opposition's calls to set up a new "national salvation" government must be questioned, "as Ennahda had earlier asked the opposition to cooperate in finding solutions to the disastrous conditions people were suffering from when the Constituent Assembly was elected, but all parties of the opposition refused to cooperate". "However, we see no reason to set up a new government, as the current one is achieving tangible success," he added. "We have a legitimate government that gained the people's trust, what is still missing is for the opposition to bear its responsibilities, so it can regain its credibility among the people," Nasr continued. On recent political initiatives to support modernity and democracy, Nasr said though Ennahda did not oppose the moves, but nobody had the right to claim they were the representative of modernity or democracy, as these concepts are backed by almost all political parties in Tunisia, "so these ideals could be sometimes misleading." Nasr said he supported calls to extend the political disenfranchisement law against the members of Ben Ali's Constitutional Coalition Party for five more years, effectively barring them from the next pariamentary and presidential elections expected in 2013. "This is a popular demand. The revolution took place to get rid of these figures, so when we ban them we are just reflecting the people's will," said Nasr Political figures of Ben Ali's dissolved party threatened to complain to international organisations against the law if passed, but Nasr had no fears about that. "They can do what they want. They are a very little minority who can't even gather dozens of people to hold a demonstration," he added. Members of the former ruling party in Tunisia were banned from running for Constituent Assembly elections in October 2011. Meanwhile, the Congress for the Republic Party promoted a draft law to extend this ban for five more years.