PDL 1

Party Nostalgic for Ben Ali Soars in the Polls

In recent months, private polling indicates a surge in popularity for the Free Destourian Party (or Free Constitutional Party, PDL by its French acronym). In many ways the PDL has fashioned itself as a new iteration of Ben Ali and the former regime’s single ruling Constitutional Rally Party (or RCD), of which PDL president Abir Moussi was once Assistant Secretary General in Charge of Women. But when Meshkal/Nawaat went to the PDL headquarters in the Kheireddine Pacha neighborhood of Tunis on March 12 to ask about the party’s rising popularity, they were met by a round, bald man in a dark navy suit: Moussi’s bodyguard.