Tunisia's Ennahda accused of money laundering

Tunisian press reports revealed a major crisis facing the Ennahda movement.

The crisis comes in the wake of accusations made by the largest judicial oversight body in Tunisia that the movement received a huge advertising campaign by the movement to improve its image in Western society.

It said Ennahda received funds without knowing its source, and violating the country's internal laws and regulations, which may be Bringing the movement’s leaderships to account before the judicial authorities soon.

And the head of the Anti-Corruption Commission was previously accused last July of the existence of illegal funds with some political parties, and many of them do not seek transparency in declaring their funds, especially during election periods, accusing foreign parties of employing local political parties by financing them.

The decree regulating political party activity in Tunisia requires each party to "submit an annual report that includes a detailed description of its sources of funding and expenditures to the Court of Auditors," but most parties do not comply with this.

According to the text of Article 22 of the law for political parties in Tunisia, it stipulates that “the political party shall open a single postal or bank account devoted to all its banking transactions.” This is what the Tunisian authorities consider that the Ennahda movement completely neglected it and did not work with it.

The recent accusations are issued by the Court of Accounts, which is the highest judicial oversight body in Tunisia. 

The accusations are related specifically to an American lobbying company to improve its image between 2014 and 2019, for an amount of more than a quarter of a million dollars, a well-known company called "Burson Cohn & Wolfe" with propaganda campaigns, lobbying and lobbying in the last Tunisian elections, beginning in 2014 and ending in 2018, at a value of $ 285,000, it was renewed with a supplementary contract to cover the period from July 16, 2019 to December 17, 2019, which is the electoral campaign period.

The Tunisian court revealed that the sources of financing the movement and how to finance this huge contract had not been inferred, and that extensive investigations were conducted into this matter, and the court was not able to know the truth, while the movement always denied any connection to the matter or accusations.

The Tunisian authorities accused the movement of working behind the scenes, violating Tunisian laws and trying to influence the voters through an illegal expulsion, in addition to communicating with foreign parties in violation of the law