Tunisia crisis deepens as inquiry launched into whether political parties received foreign funding

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Tunisia’s judiciary has reportedly launched an investigation into three of the country’s leading political parties, including Ennahda and Qalb Tounes, on suspicion of receiving foreign funds during the 2019 election campaign.

This come after the country’s President, Kais Saied, caused alarm in the international community when he dismissed the prime minister, Hichem Mechichi, on Sunday and suspended parliament for 30 days. The President’s actions plunged the Tunisia into its deepest crisis in a decade and led to accusations of a coup taking place.

A judicial source told Reuters that the investigation was opened on 14 July, weeks before the President staged his dramatic intervention on Sunday.

The investigation into foreign funding is taking place free from presidential interference, sources said, insisting on its independence. Nevertheless, irrespective of its ultimate authorship, that it is taking place at all is likely to ratchet up the pressure on the President’s opponents.

Also being investigated is the group, Ayich Tounes, a populist movement that sprang from the philanthropic efforts of Tunisians Selim Ben Hassen and Olfa Terras Rambourg in 2019. 

All three of the parties involved are no strangers to controversy. Media mogul, Nabil Karoui, who founded Qalb Tounes, fought the majority of his 2019 presidential bid from the cells of Tunisia’s prison system, where he was being held for corruption – charges he denies, but which remain ongoing.

Ennahda have been dogged by controversy almost from its inception, with a range of accusations levelled at them. While details are scarce, accusations over foreign funding most likely relate to public suspicions over the political party’s close relationship to the Gulf state, Qatar.

Ayich Tounes, for its part has long been linked to the French, Rambourg Foundation.

Kais Saied’s dramatic intervention into Tunisian political life on Sunday remains overwhelmingly popular within the North African country. On Tuesday, the country’s nobel prize winning National Order of Tunisian Lawyers, (ONAT)  threw their weight behind the President, calling for an opening of all the records relating to past corruption, electoral interference and terrorism.

Nevertheless, Tunisia’s current direction of travel is unlikely to calm frayed nerves overseas.

In Washington, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said the US and its allies needed to go “all in” on Tunisia,  including being “on the ground”. Elsewhere, Democrat Chris Murphy questioned the possibility of the UAE and Saudi Arabi lying behind the President’s actions.

Irrespective of outside involvement, the President enjoys enthusiastic support from a public long wearied with the theatrics and grandstanding of the country’s party politics. Over successive governments, Tunisia’s politicians have come to be seen as having prioritised parliamentary positioning over the welfare of the country.

In recent weeks, the government’s woeful response to the global pandemic has proven to be a lightning rod for public distrust in parliament and politicians. Oxygen supplies within Tunisia’s chronically underfunded public healthcare system have long been at a premium as Coronavirus cases continued to peak.

Compounding public perceptions of political ineffectiveness was the bothced opening of vaccine centres over the Muslim holiday of Eid and the subsequent mud slinging between the prime minister and the minister of health over who was responsible for the debacle.

A wall daubed with the slogan ‘power to the people’ in central Tunis

(Simon Speakman Cordall)

In addition, the President’s supporters have characterised Tunisia’s largest party, the self-styled “Muslim democrats,” Ennahda as simply ‘Islamists’ in an effort to undermine any criticism of Saied’s intervention. 

Ennahda has been a presence in almost every government since the revolution, which has done little to bolster its current credibility. Over 10 years, Ennahda has entered into a succession of unlikely political partnerships, amid claims it was to preserve either the country’s stability or the party’s own fortunes, depending upon your perspective.

For now, the country looks on, waiting to see what the President will do. He appears secure in the short term, with the conditional support of a variety of allies, not least the hugely influential general trade union, the UGTT.

However, much of his backing is conditioned upon the measures he has enacted remaining within the limits he has set for himself, not least reopening the parliament at the end of its suspension.



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