Tunisia calls on president, PM, MPs to declare their properties

A pro-government movement in Tunisia has called on President Kais Saied, Prime Minister Najla Bouden and the members of parliament to declare their properties in the framework of combating illicit enrichment.

In a press conference held in Tunis, the spokesman of the July 25 Movement, Mahmoud Ben Mabrouk, called on “new MPs to declare their profits every three months.”

He also called on President Kais Saied and Prime Minister Najla Bouden to declare their gains and properties to combat illicit enrichment.

“We are fighting in a national liberation war to purge the country of corruption and restore national sovereignty,” Ben Mabrouk said.

On Monday, the Tunisian Parliament opened its doors to its newly elected MPs after 20 months of closure. The opposition is not represented in parliament because it boycotted the election which yielded a voter turnout of under ten per cent.

The elections are part of exceptional measures that Saied imposed on 25 July 2021, which also included the dissolution of the Supreme Judicial Council and Parliament, the issuance of legislation by presidential orders, and the approval of a constitution through a referendum.

Tunisian forces consider Saied’s measures as a “consolidation of absolute individual rule” and a “coup against the revolution. His supporters, however, claim he acted as a “correction of the course of the 2011 revolution”, which overthrew former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

However, Saied, who assumed the presidency for a presidential term of five years in 2019, considered that his measures were “necessary and legal” to save the state from “total collapse”.

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