TUNIS: A former Tunisian interior minister said Thursday that loyalists of ousted President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali will mount a coup if Islamists take power in democratic elections.
Tunisia’s main Islamist group, Ennahda, led by moderate Muslim scholar Rachid Ghannouchi and banned under Ben Ali, says it will contest an election slated for July after 23 years of one-man rule.
Experts say it could poll well, particularly in the conservative south, where there is deep frustration over poverty and unemployment.

“If Ennahda takes power, there will be a coup d’etat,” Farhat Rajhi, who took over as Tunisian interior minister soon after the revolution, said in a video shared on Facebook. “The people of the coast are not disposed to give up power and, if the elections go against them, there will be a coup d’etat.”
“People of the coast” is a reference to Ben Ali loyalists who have their power base in and around his hometown, the coastal city of Sousse.
Ben Ali’s overthrow in January in the first of the uprisings to rock the Arab world has awoken tensions between pro- and anti-Islamists.

A common thread running through the revolts has been unease among secularists and in the West about whether democracy will open the door to Islamic rule. Egypt, where the popular Muslim Brotherhood will contest elections in September, will be watching developments in Tunisia closely.
Rajhi is deemed relatively independent and a shrewd observer of Tunisian politics. But Ennahda officials said they did not believe a coup was likely.
“We do not yet have an official position on the declaration by Mr. Rajhi, but I can tell you we have faith in all the elements of the state and in the people to respect the will of the people,” said senior Ennahda official Nourdine Bhiri.

The July 23 vote is for an assembly that will draft a new constitution.
Rajhi was replaced in March in the latest shakeup of a caretaker government struggling to keep Tunisia’s shaky transition to democracy on track.
An ominous sign has been a string of mass prison breaks, the latest late Wednesday when 58 prisoners escaped in Tunisia’s second city of Sfax and were met by accomplices armed with metal bars and knives, the official TAP news agency reported.

Last Friday, about 300 inmates escaped the Gafsa prison after a fire broke out in one of its cells, a military source told TAP. The sources added that the search operations helped arrest some 35 prisoners, TAP said.
Tunisian security officials have said they believe the prison breaks to be the work of Ben Ali loyalists trying to sow chaos and undermine the transition.
Neighboring Algeria plunged into chaos in 1992 when the military-backed government scrapped a legislative election that a radical Islamist party was poised to win. According to independent estimates, 200,000 people were killed in the violence that ensued.