TUNIS - Leaders of 11 progressive and secularist political parties from Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia completed a two-day brainstorming session focused on breathing new life into the 29-year-old Arab Maghreb Union. The parties set up a coordination body, dubbed the “Network of Democratic Parties in North Africa,” which conspicuously avoided the phrase “Arab Maghreb” and its identity implications. There are more than 210 political parties in Tunisia and 40 political groups in Libya. “The (network) remains open to all other democratic political parties from all the countries of the region,” the parties said in a statement at the end of their meetings in Sousse, Tunisia. Islamists are not part of the new Maghrebi network, which is dominated by secularist and progressive-leaning political parties.

Source: The North Africa Journal April 21, 2018 17:26 UTC