Tunisia-Noureddine Bhiri: Tunisia has only Rached Ghannouchi and Ennahdha

Ennahdha movement  MP Noureddine Bhir addressed several topics including the strains within Ennahdha, the report of the Court of Auditors on the 2019 elections, and the epidemiological situation in the nation.

He restated that the discussion within Ennahdha on the presidency of Rached Ghannouchi and the holding of the Party Congress was quite good, “although seldom it intensifies and spills over into the media”.

He declared that party members desired for the Congress to go as designed in December, remarking that there was no reason to delay it.

Interviewed on the initiative asking for separating the role of party leader from that of party president, he asserted that the president of Ennahdha could “not be a leader” recollecting that Rached Ghannouchi had been a regional leader for years now.

Speaking on the national radio, He explained that in terms of great personalities, only Rached Ghannouchi and his party, Ennahdha, prevailed in Tunisia – after Béji Caïd Essebsi and Nidaa Tounes who scattered.

Regarding the return of Hammadi Jebali and other former members to the party, he ensured that it was somewhat in a logic of reuniting Ennahdha the “backbone of the democratic transition in Tunisia”.

“To weaken the unity of the party and to weaken it endangers the unity of the country. We have already lost a big calibre which is Béji Caïd Essebsi and a big party which is Nidaa Tounes. Losing Ennahdha is accordingly losing Tunisia, “he added.

Asked about the presence of tensions between Rached Ghannouchi, and the President of the Republic, Kaïs Saïed he categorically refused that there is a competition between the two presidencies.

In his opinion, the rumours about a likely conflict between Rached Ghannouchi and Kaïs Saïed are solely the work of certain parties who want to set the country ablaze.

Concerning the report of the Court of Auditors on the presidential and legislative elections of 2019, he said: “We remain persuaded that the country necessitates democracy, development and wealth. Things that we cannot establish in the absence of independent justice and tight financial control, ”.

“No one is above the law. Furthermore, we commended the efforts of the Court of Auditors. That said, whoever is accused of something, he still has the right to answer, ”he added before dismissing the accusations of the Court of Auditors guaranteeing that Ennahdha had not committed any overrun during the legislative 2019.

Regarding the evolution of the epidemiological situation of the country, Noureddine Bhiri recalled that he had requested for the opening of an inquiry to identify the parties responsible for the judgment to reopen the borders without taking measures to necessary support and the passage of certain “friendly” countries from the red list to the green list. “It was a big mistake,” he said.

In this sense, he requested owners of private clinics to shoulder their responsibilities in the face of the seriousness of the health situation, emphasising that this pandemic was merely an opportunity to enrich oneself.