Yesterday, Rached Ghannouchi has been arrested as part of the ongoing crackdown against the Opposition, the press and critics by Tunisia’s leader Kais Saied. So far only, Newsbook seems to be covering the crisis in Tunisia amongst the Maltese press and the Maltese government is clueless that Tunisia is going through a constitutional crisis. What happens in Tunisia has repercussions across North Africa and the Mediterranean Sea and it is home to the Arab Spring.
Rached Ghannouchi is one of the most influential pro-democratic Islamic leaders in the Arab world. He is the leader of the Ennahda Movement which shared power with the secularists in Tunisia after decades-long dictator Ben Ali was ousted from power. Until he was arrested, Ghannuchi occupied the post of speaker of the House of Parliament.
It is in Malta’s security interest that our neighbours with whom we make deals and have extensive relationships are represented by leaders who have a popular mandate, and our government should stress this clearly and publicly. It is not in our interest to deal with dictatorial leaders who destabilise the region.
There’s more chance of pigs learning to fly than Labour learning how to do foreign policy. I shudder to think how events would have unfolded during the Libyan crisis if Labour was in power.