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Ed Webb

US lobbying revelations upend Tunisia's presidential race - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...-lobbying-ari-ben-menashe.html

Tunisia election elections lobbying US USA corruption media

shared by Ed Webb on 06 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • As Tunisians prepare for back-to-back legislative and presidential elections, news first revealed by Al-Monitor has had a bombshell effect: A purported emissary of imprisoned presidential candidate Nabil Karoui signed a $1 million lobbying contract to secure a meeting with President Donald Trump, among others.
  • Karoui’s opponents cite laws that forbid any foreign funding or support for Tunisians running for office. “The money didn’t come from Tunisia so it came from outside Tunisia, and that is against the law,” said Leila Chettaoui, a member of parliament for Prime Minister Youssef Chahed’s pro-secular Tahya Tounes party. “If it’s proven to be the case, Karoui must be disqualified.”
  • complaint also mentions Ennahda party, which has retained Burson-Marsteller (now BCW) for public affairs work in the United States since 2014, as well as parliamentary candidate Olfa Terras-Rambourg, who retained Washington firm America to Africa Consulting in early September
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  • Dickens & Madson is instructed to lobby the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations in view of “attaining the presidency of the Republic of Tunisia.” It calls on Dickens & Madson's president, Ari Ben-Menashe, to secure meetings with Trump and other senior US officials before the elections. He’s also to arrange face time with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, to obtain “material support for the push for the presidency.”
  • statement noted that Karoui would seek legal redress against those who portrayed him “in such a despicable manner.” It closed by referring to Karoui’s “principled and consistent position in supporting the Palestinian cause.” The party apparently felt compelled to emphasize their leader’s pro-Palestinian stance in response to critics’ claims he was colluding with Israeli agents. Ben-Menashe is a former Israeli intelligence officer
  • The media magnate has cast himself as the champion of Tunisia’s poor through his popular Nessma TV channel and his charity organization, Khalil, named after his 18-year-old son who died in a car crash. Critics disparage him as “Karoui Macaroni” because his charity has donated large amounts of pasta, among other things, to Tunisia’s swollen underclass.
  • Anger over widespread corruption, joblessness and rising food prices helped Karoui pull in second behind law professor Kais Saied in the Sept. 15 presidential primary, which saw voters rebuff establishment hopefuls, including Chahed and Abdelfattah Mourou of the pro-Islamist Ennahda party.
  • Some draw parallels between Karoui and Trump, both wealthy populists who have taken on the establishment and whose supporters are apparently immune to allegations of wrongdoing, putting it all down to “fake news.” Chaouachi agreed there may be some similarities. “They are both leaders who think outside of the box, who challenge convention.” She added, however, that “they are fundamentally different, and Mr. Karaoui is unique.”
Ed Webb

Tunisia Plans to Join BRICS Nations | Asharq AL-awsat - 0 views

english.aawsat.com/...nisia-plans-join-brics-nations

Tunisia Algeria BRIC BRICS economy politics IMF EU saied

shared by Ed Webb on 10 Apr 23 - No Cached
  • Tunisia said on Saturday that it intends to join the BRICS countries bloc of emerging economies that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
  • Mabrouk described the BRICS nations as “a political, economic and financial alternative that will enable Tunisia to open up to the new world.”
  • “We will accept no dictates or interference in Tunisia’s internal affairs. We are negotiating the terms, but we refuse to receive instructions and the EU’s agenda,”
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  • In 2018, Tunisia signed an agreement to join the "Belt and Road" initiative, which was established by China in 2013. Bin Mabrouk went on to say: "After Algeria announced that it will join the group, we will also announce our intention to join BRICS." Alegria had earlier announced plans to join the BRICS group next year.
Ed Webb

Tunisian democracy in crisis after president ousts government | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...nt-ousts-government-2021-07-26

Tunisia economy authoritarianism politics military pandemics coup crisis

shared by Ed Webb on 26 Jul 21 - No Cached
  • Tunisia faced its biggest crisis in a decade of democracy on Monday after President Kais Saied ousted the government and froze the activities of parliament, a move his foes labelled a coup that should be opposed on the street.
  • after a day of protests against the government and the biggest party in parliament, the moderate Islamist Ennahda, following a spike in COVID-19 cases and growing anger over chronic political dysfunction and economic malaise
  • huge crowds gathered in his support in Tunis and other cities, cheering, dancing and ululating while the military blocked off the parliament and state television station
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  • In the early hours of Monday, Ghannouchi arrived at the parliament where he said he would call a session in defiance of Saied, but the army stationed outside the building stopped the 80-year-old former political exile from entering.
  • Dozens of Ennahda supporters faced off against Saied supporters near the parliament building, exchanging insults as the police held them apart
  • He said his actions were based on Article 80 of the constitution and framed them as a popular response to the economic and political paralysis that have mired Tunisia for years.However, a special court required by the 2014 constitution to adjudicate such disputes between Tunisia's branches of state has never been established after years of wrangling over which judges to include, allowing rival interpretations of law
  • Two of the other main parties in parliament, Heart of Tunisia and Karama, joined Ennahda in accusing Saied of a coup. Former president Moncef Marzouki who helped oversee the transition to democracy after the revolution said it could represent the start of a slope "into an even worse situation".
  • also suspended the legal immunity of parliament members and that he was taking control of the general prosecutor's office
  • the parliamentary election delivered a fragmented chamber in which no party held more than a quarter of seats
  • Under the constitution, the president has direct responsibility only for foreign affairs and the military, but after a government debacle with walk-in vaccination centres last week, he told the army to take charge of the pandemic response.Tunisia's soaring infection and death rates have added to public anger at the government as the country's political parties bickered
  • Mechichi was attempting to negotiate a new loan with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that was seen as crucial to averting a looming fiscal crisis as Tunisia struggles to finance its budget deficit and coming debt repayments.Disputes over the economic reforms, seen as needed to secure the loan but which could hurt ordinary Tunisians by ending subsidies or cutting public sector jobs, had already brought the government close to collapse
Ed Webb

Mistrust of elites fuels rise of Tunisia's presidential hopefuls | Tunisia | Al Jazeera - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...-hopefuls-191010201548585.html

Tunisia elections election opinion constitution presidency legislatures

shared by Ed Webb on 12 Oct 19 - Cached
  • marginalised neighbourhoods like Cite Ettadhamen have become a key political battleground ahead of the country's presidential runoff on Sunday. In the hope of securing the votes of Tunisia's poor, candidates Kais Saied, 61 and Nabil Karoui, 56, have offered a vision of employment, education, healthcare and improved infrastructure
  • Amid a field of 26 candidates featuring a number of political heavyweights, the two self-styled political outsiders surprised the country by finishing in first and second place in last month's first round
  • Saied, a law professor who has kept a low profile throughout the campaign and whose supporters see as embodying anti-elitism, ran without the backing of a party and won 18.4 percent nationally
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  • Media tycoon Karoui, a populist figure who until Wednesday sat in jail on suspicion of money laundering and tax evasion, took 15.6 percent of the vote. He denies all the charges and says they are politically motivated
  • In Ettadhamen, Saied's humble persona and rejection of the political status quo propelled him to the top, with 21.7 percent of the first-round vote. Karoui, who founded a charity to alleviate poverty and whose Nessma TV channel has promoted his philanthropic activities, trailed in second place on 19.4 percent. Despite his personal wealth, his supporters see him as a liberal champion of Tunisia's poor
  • In a country that ranks as the 73rd most corrupt out of 180 states, according to the Economic Research Forum, mistrust of the political elite has become widespread.
  • 40 percent of Tunisia's unemployed have university degrees
  • it is still possible that Karoui will contest the results if he loses on Sunday - ushering in another period of political uncertainty. "Not only will the parliament be fractured and the government unstable, but the entire electoral mandate could be questioned as well,"
  • While Parliament drafts and votes on legislation, the president's mandate is limited to foreign affairs, defence and national security. But the language of the 2014 constitution remains relatively vague when it comes to setting out the jurisdiction of the president versus the head of government, the prime minister
  • "Given that there is no constitutional court to adjudicate between them, ultimately the distribution in power will be based on the personality of who occupies each position and how far they are willing to go to challenge one another,"
  • growing nostalgia for a strong, presidential system - a desire that is only likely to grow as the fractured parliament struggles to form a government - it is possible that the presidency will emerge as the stronger of the two executives
Ed Webb

Kais Saied faces a fractured political landscape in Tunisia after win - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...ctions-kais-saied-victory.html

Tunisia politics presidency election elections analysis

shared by Ed Webb on 21 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • The Oct. 13 landslide victory for outsider presidential candidate Kais Saied was historic by any measure. After an unpredictable contest in which voters appeared determined to purge traditional parties and public figures that have dominated the post-Arab Spring landscape, Tunisian politics has entered a new era –– though exactly what comes next is anyone’s guess.
  • Riding a wave of revolt that was driven by an unorthodox coalition of students, anti-corruption voters and conservatives, Saied rose from relative obscurity little more than a year ago to best an original field of 27 candidates and seize the highest political office in the land.
  • everybody has their own interpretation of the 61-year-old professor’s message.  “Some accuse me of being a Salafist, others of being a radical leftist,” the candidate said critically during the Oct. 11 presidential debate. “But I have always been an independent and will die an independent.”
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  • While some in the crowd expressed uneasiness about Saied’s professed social conservatism, others remained confident that the enigmatic figure could transcend the divide between secularism and Islamism that has defined much of the past decade in Tunisian politics
  • Over two rounds of presidential voting, Tunisia’s post-Arab Spring order was turned upside down as household-name politicians from across the spectrum were toppled. Instead, the electorate turned decisively toward a distinctly Tunisian brand of populism, one focused on combating corruption and alleviating poverty in a nation still reeling from nearly a decade of post-revolution stagnation.
  • Saied campaigned on a maverick platform of anti-corruption measures and radical constitutional changes that would place localized, direct democracy at the center of policymaking.
  • “[Saied] offered ideas and hopes, even though hard to realize, while Karoui offered food and money,” Youssef Cherif, head of the Columbia Global Affairs Center in Tunis, told Al-Monitor.
  • voters between the ages of 18 and 25 proved decisive
  • Despite lofty rhetoric, with promises to return power to the people and remake Tunisian political structures, major questions remain unanswered about a future Saied presidency, his agenda and what type of political bloc could emerge to work with him in what promises to be a badly fractured legislature.
  • In a survey conducted by Tunisian publication Le Manager, Saied had failed to take a clear position on 24 out of 25 current political topics they studied, more than any other candidate. 
  • While Saied’s social conservatism might hint at a possible alliance on some issues with an Ennahda-aligned bloc, analyst Cherif said that many parts of his agenda, particularly those targeting corruption, could put members of the party in its crosshairs.
  • “The fact that he doesn't have a structured political party will complicate things for him, and he might end up isolated in the Presidential Palace of Carthage,”
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