Tunisia is currently descending into authoritarianism once again and Malta as a neighbouring liberal democracy should directly and upfront make its concerns on the state of Tunisia’s democracy to Tunisia’s President Kais Saied and his government. Instead, the Maltese government is holding thanks with its Tunisian counterparts as if it’s business as usual – it’s not. Pictured below is Malta’s Permanent Secretary of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs Cristopher Cutajar meeting his Tunisian counterpart, State Secretary of the Tunisian Foreign Affairs Ministry Mounir Ben Rjiba.
We should also be making it absolutely clear that it is not in our national security interest that Tunisia descends once again into an authoritarian dictatorship. This is true in material terms as well. Malta has historically had much better and more stable relationships with the neighboring countries that were democracies in contrast to our relations with the dictatorships of North Africa. We were involved with maritime border disputes with Libya, and for years we faced an immigration problem apart from very volatile and insecure trading and economic relationships. That Tunisia and Libya evolve into functioning liberal democracies is in our direct material and security interests.
This is also a point of principle, but this argument is useless to make when our government is a criminal organisation. On this, I will continue with another article later on this night.
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