Former Tunisian President warns of Algerian interference in internal affairs

Former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki deplored his country’s descent to authoritarianism under Kais Saied and his mentor Algeria which he said “never stopped intervening in our internal affairs.”

“Algeria opposed us after the revolution and spared no effort to foil Tunisian democracy,” Marzouki told Algerian opposition channel Canal 22 Algérie.

The Algerian regime was intent on undermining the nascent Tunisian democracy as it feared a spillover of the pro-democracy momentum, he said.

Commenting on Algeria’s condescending and paternalism, Marzouki said no one has assigned the guardianship of Tunisia to Tebboune and that he had better look after his own country.

“The (Algerian) President speaks like a protector of a dictatorship which the Tunisian people do not want…Algeria is a dictatorship that wants to maintain another dictatorship in Tunisia,” he said.

He also deplored the worsening ties between Morocco and Tunisia after the latter gave up to Algerian pressure leading to Kais Saied’s blunt reception of Polisario separatist leader last summer.

Marzouki, who is in exile in France, was sentenced in absentia to four years in Prison after he called for protests against Saied, describing his power grab as a coup.

Saied intensified his crackdown on all major opposition figures, sending scores to jail. The most recent was leader of the Ennahda Islamist opposition party Rached Ghannouchi who has been indicted with high treason based.

The Islamist leader was arrested last Monday following a lawsuit against him by the ministry of justice over a video in which he warned that the country will slide into civil war should the state attack any political party.

Meanwhile, the country faces dim financial prospects as its talks for an IMF lifeline stalk, triggering fears of an economic collapse that would further undermine Tunisia’s social peace.