Tunisia's Islamist movement Ennahda (Renaissance), has definitively pulled out of a national commission tasked with bringing in political reforms, its leader Rached Ghannouchi said Monday.

The commission "believes it has a popular legitimacy, when it hasn't," Ghannouchi told a press conference in Tunis, reproaching the panel for its "condescension."

The reform panel was set up in February after the popular uprising that ousted president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali on January 14, with a brief to pave the way for democratic change in the north African country.

Ennahda suspended its participation in the commission's work last week and then announced that the decision could become definitive.

The Islamist movement, which was finally legalised at the start of early March after three decades as a banned opposition group, first pulled out of the reform panel at the end of May after a dispute over the date for elections, which had initially been set for July 24.

The reform panel, or "high instance for the achievement of the goals of the revolution, political reform and a democratic transition," is headed by Yadh Ben Achour, and has set itself far-reaching aims.