Tunisia: Old guard or new Islamists

It will be all hands on deck for Tunisia’s ruling Islamist party Nahda this week, as the three-party coalition it leads strives to hold a steady course towards parliamentary and probably presidential elections next year. Nahda's adversaries have been loudly opining that the country is in the hands of incompetents at best, and dangerous ideologues at worst. In the weeks building up to the first anniversary of the October 23 election, they have been upping their calls for a new government. The most outspoken among critics of the Nahda-led government is the Nida Tounes (‘Tunisian Call’) party, headed by the 85-year-old Beji Caid Sebsi. Founded earlier this year it has yet to face an electoral test, but Caid Sebsi’s political pedigree dates back to the time of the country’s first post-independence President Habib Bourguiba, when he was a steely interior minister.  Through most of last year, following the overthrow of Zine el