Tunisian Ennahda Party Caught In Corruption Net
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Roshan Amiri
- . July 12, 2022
- . Update: July 13, 2022 12:20 pm
Tunisia– One of Tunisia’s most influential and power political party Islamist-inspired Ennahda party has been summoned for explaining corruption charges against it. The anti-corruption judge in Tunisia recently froze the accounts of ten people including the leader of the party Rached Ghannouchi and former Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, a Financial Analysis committee member.
The party has been known to have been involved in many assassinations and has been taking kickbacks too. As it gradually comes into focus for the wrong reasons, maybe this is one huge factor that it decided to rebrand itself a few years back. But that has not gone in its favor either. “Ennahda has changed from an ideological movement engaged in the struggle for identity to a protest movement against the authoritarian regime and now to a national democratic party. We must keep religion far from political struggles,” Rachid Ghannouchi, the party’s 74-year-old founder and president had then declared this in 2016.
Despite its popular support, Ennahda proved to be an inexperienced political party. Unemployment persisted, the economy continued to lag and Tunisia’s security situation worsened.
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Off late, it has also been discovered that the country was losing some 3percent of its GDP in illicit financial flow. This amounts to $1.2 billion. The blame also lies on the party for indulging in graft dealings too. Other unlawful activities as suggested by the Financial Action Task Force, includes not just tax evasion and avoidance through mis-invoicing but also abusive transfer pricing accounting for over US$500 million in lost revenue in Tunisia every year.
The former Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, and a senior member in the Ennahda Islamist party has already been arrested on suspicion of money laundering. Apparently, Ennahda Party in its defense has said that as Saied’s opponents, they are facing the music as the current PM is waging a campaign through the police and the judiciary to target his opponents, but he denies this and says he is not a dictator.
