By IANS,
Tunis : Tunisia’s main Islamist group Al-Nahda has been allowed to form a new political party by the country’s interim government, a media report said Wednesday.
Al-Nahda (The Awakening) remained banned for two decades under the regime of then president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Government spokesman Ali el-Aryadh said Tuesday that “the al-Nahda movement has just been legalised”.
Tuesday’s decision will allow al-Nahda to participate in the upcoming elections, Al Jazeera TV reported citing the country’s official Tunis Afrique Presse news agency.
The al-Nahda movement was founded in 1981. After the group participated in the 1989 parliamentary polls, Ben Ali had ordered a crackdown on its activists and sympathisers.
The Islamist-backed coalition had won 17 percent of the vote in that election. Analysts say al-Nahda could once again rise as a major political force.