Page 27 - Trends

than 55,000 votes, only 0.56 percent of
the total, and a single deputy seat.

Garnering mass support
Learning from this bitter failure, he
vowed to catch up in the next election
and started putting together the means
to do so. Strengthened by the jackpot
transferred to Tunisia — amounting to
nearly €200 million — the businessman
decided to take a shortcut to boost his
popularity and that of his political par-
ty by buying a football team, the safest
and fastest way to gain the support of the
working classes.
The president of the UPL then set his
sights on the African Club, the most pop-
ular club in the capital, with Espérance
Sports Tunis. To this dynamic mobili-
zation weapon of sports, Riahi added
another equally effective measure to
mobilize crowds and win mass support
— the media. After expressing interest
in 2012 in Dar Assabah, one of the oldest
and most important press groups in the
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teri, son-in-law of former President Ben
Ali), but without taking it to its logical
conclusion, the businessman bought the
frequencies of the television station At-
tounissia in April 2013. But because of © AFP
problems erupting between the trans-
feror and a former foreign owner of the
Attounissia frequencies on the one hand The president of the UPL then set his sights on the African Club,
and the legal battle that its founder Sami
Fehri dished out at him on the other, Ri- the most popular club in the capital, with Espérance Sports Tunis.
ahi could never take effective control of
the television channel. integrated into the coalition govern- in Paris, which opened the way to the
However, all this did not prevent the ment then formed and led by Habib Es- historic compromise between veteran
UPL — which hadn’t even existed three sid, in which it holds three portfolios: Tunisian politician and current president
years ago on the political spectrum — State Domains and Land Affairs, Youth Béji Caïd Essebsi and Tunisian politi-
from coming third in the legislative and Sport, Environment and Sustain- cian and thinker Rached Ghannouchi.
elections of November 2014 and obtain- able Development. Undoubtedly, Riahi was then at the
ing 16 seats of deputies in the Assem- SHDN RI KLV LQÁXHQFH DQG SRZHU ³
bly of the Representatives of the People Historic compromise which perhaps eventually made him lose
(ARP), slightly ahead of the Front Pop- It was not surprising, given the ideolog- his sense of reality and provoked the
ular (15 deputies), but far behind Nidaa ical proximity — the UPL is, like Nidaa vertiginous fall he is experiencing to-
Tounes (86) and Ennahdha (69). It was Tounes and Ennahdha, a conservative day, a fact that can hardly be ruled out.
an encouraging start for a new party force — that its leader Riahi was one of In any case, his political behavior since
Thus, it was quite natural that the the main forces who facilitated and or- the day after the elections at the end of
third political force of the country was ganized the meeting of August 15, 2013, 2014 only serves to encourage this line

February 2018 | TRENDS 27