Tunisia’s Islamists re-elect Ghannouchi as party chief

Tunisia’s ruling Ennahda has re-elected moderate Rachid Ghannouchi to lead the Islamist party for two more years, sources said on Monday, an outcome that could reassure secularists worried about a slide into religious government.One Ennahda source close to Ghannouchi said he had taken more than 70 percent of the vote at the party’s first public congress that began on Thursday.Banned under Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who was toppled last year in mass protests that sparked the Arab Spring, Ennahda won the most seats in elections to a constituent assembly in October and formed a government in coalition with two secular parties.Ennahda has since come under pressure from both hardline Salafi Muslims, calling for the introduction of Islamic law, and secular opposition parties.Twelve leading Ennahda officials competed for the post. Among them were Sadek Chorou and Habib Elouz, both considered hardliners who pushed for Ennahda to support the inclusion of Islamic law in the constitution currently being drawn up by the elected constituent assembly.Abdel Fattah Mourou, a co-founder of Ennahda who was excluded from the movement in the 1990s, returned to the fold at the congress and also ran for the top job.Some 1,103 Ennahda members voted to elect the president and secretary general as well as a powerful 150-member consultative committee.Ghannouchi, Ennahda’s co-founder and current leader, is a respected scholar who teaches that Islam is compatible with democracy.