Tunisia's Ennahda calls for national dialogue

TUNIS, Tunisia

Tunisia’s Ennahda movement on Wednesday called for a comprehensive national dialogue to form a political front to resume democracy and restore legitimacy.

The movement, which held the majority of seats in the country’s disrupted parliament, called on "all anti-coup forces to unite efforts and options and to conclude a common ground through a comprehensive national dialogue."

The purpose of the dialogue, Ennahda said in a statement, is "to form a political front that leads the political and popular movement and accelerates the resumption of democratic life and the restoration of legitimacy."

Tunisian President Kais Saied ousted the government on July 25, suspended parliament, and assumed executive authority. While he insists that his "exceptional measures" are meant to "save" the country, critics have accused him of orchestrating a coup.

Ennahda expressed its "solidarity with the hunger strikers from the citizens' campaign against the coup and the national political figures participating in it."

The majority of political and civil forces in Tunisia reject Saied's actions as a "coup against the constitution", while other forces support the measures as a "correction of the course of the 2011 revolution", which overthrew then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who ruled the country 24 years.