Interviewed in Tunis / Khamis Ben Brik
Former Tunisian president Dr Moncef Marzouki said he had not yet decided to run for president on Nov. 10, denying that he had any contacts with the Ennahda movement to get their support, as the latter no longer considered it to have an interest in dealing with him. .
Al-Marzouki warned in a special interview on Al-Jazeera Net of the great dangers facing the upcoming elections due to the continuation of foreign intervention by what he calls the axis of Arab evil. He pointed out that this axis consisting of the UAE, Saudi and Egyptian systems will seek various ways to intervene with money and media to block the road in case of candidacy. .
He questioned the results of opinion polls that do not put him as a prominent candidate in the presidency compared to other candidates who lead the vanguard of voting intentions, although they do not have any political experience, considering that the results of opinion polls published this period to mislead the Tunisian public opinion, excluding the return of the corruption system and the system of the former regime. This is the text of the dialogue:
- What prevents you so far from revealing your intention to run for the 2019 presidential election?
I know that my decision will be decisive in my political life, so I think we should wait and observe the scene and take as many views as possible.
In any event, a candidacy issue depends mainly on the support I will receive. Therefore, the decision was postponed until the end of next July after the June 30th meeting of our political party, "Tunisia Mobility," to discuss the issue in a clear way. There will be another press conference next month About my final decision.
- If you are nominated, do you have the ability to mobilize the votes of the Renaissance movement as you did in the 2014 elections?
| " A question of my candidacy depends mainly on the support I will receive, so I postponed the decision to the end of July next after the June 30th meeting of the political body of our party " |
- "Renaissance" has not settled on who will run for the presidency, is it possible that you are the candidate?
Start. There has been no connection between me and the Renaissance movement since the end of the Troika experience (the government coalition led by the Nahdha movement with the parties of the Congress for the Republic and the party bloc from 2011 until the end of 2013).
- What is the reason for this break? Is it your assessment of the Troika experience, or are there other differences?
Nothing like that, we are open to all currents, but I think the other party considers that it no longer has any interest in dealing with us. But I'm outstretched for anyone who wants to continue the road with me, but I will continue my way no matter what the comrades are.
- Polls do not show you as a prominent candidate, unlike other candidates who do not have a political experience. Do you think Marzouki's popularity has declined or the results of opinion polls are misleading?
Is there any doubt that the results of the opinion polls are intended to mislead Tunisian public opinion? In fact, this is not a Tunisian peculiarity, even in the United States it has been proven that the polls have been manipulated. For me, I think that before the elections, the Tunisian people are threatened with brainwashing and disinformation by opinion polls, corrupt media, political money, foreign interference and other dirty means.
Today liars and charlatans have become a popular market for media and polls, but which country can we build on these grounds? Thus, we must set strict legal frameworks to protect Tunisians from false media. As for the chances of winning these candidates, I personally do not give any value to the results of opinion polls that put them in the forefront, and you will see in the next election that all this butter will go to the edge.
- Apart from his progress in the polls, the Free Constitutional Party seems to have succeeded in rallying many supporters. Do you think that the remnants of the former regime are capable of separating them and getting influential seats in parliament?
| " Is there any doubt that the results of the polls are intended to mislead Tunisian public opinion? In fact, this is not a Tunisian peculiarity. Even in the United States, it has been proven that the polls have been manipulated |
I do not fear the next battle with the old collective system because it is clear in its positions. As a doctor I always say that the symptoms of the disease must be shown until they are properly treated. I imagine that the Tunisians will be alerted and alerted to the remnants of the dissolved Tagammu Party, which seeks to bring the Tunisians back to the tyranny of corruption, corruption, torture and the one-man state. It is therefore impossible for this system to win because it is based on corruption.
- The amendment of the electoral law has raised a great deal of controversy to lift the parliamentary threshold and block the nomination of media and association leaders, although supporters of the amendment say it enshrines the principle of equal opportunity. What is your position on this issue?
I have reservations about some people like Nabil al-Qarawi, the owner of Nessma TV, who is exploiting a charity program on his channel to attract people and get to the presidency, but I am against the amendment of the law at this time because we are on the threshold of the elections. It is therefore morally and legally impossible to draft electoral laws on the scale to exclude political opponents. The law was supposed to be revised at least one year before the elections.
- The head of the Anti-Corruption Commission Shawki Doctor warned that the transitional path is threatened by corrupt political money and foreign intervention. How to judge the integrity of parties?
When I was President of the Republic, I was reporting reports of money coming from abroad to some parties. I asked the Ministry of the Interior to conduct a research on the subject, but unfortunately the deep state was working against me.
Imagine, for example, if I personally took two Mercedes-Benz cars from Qatar, I think that the world will not sit down. On the other hand, when President Baiji Kayed Al-Sibsi handed over the two cars from the UAE and discovered the scandal that was supposed to be tried against it, the media turned a blind eye to it.
Before the 2014 election stage, foreign intervention and corrupt money were in full swing, but we were in a position of weakness at the time. We could not do anything because of the regional conditions that had engulfed democracy in Egypt, not to mention the distortion campaigns that targeted us day and night from the media.
- How do you evaluate the system of elected government since 2014 to date?
It did not occur to me that the collapse of this system - which has a president, a prime minister, a parliament, a strong parliamentary bloc and all the potential of external support and media trumpets - would collapse in such a way.
| " The Axis of Evil is the regime of the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which have been established in favor of Israel and dominant Western economic and military pressure groups. These regimes are the main task of breaking the spirit of the Arab revolutions and preventing the Arab peoples from determining their destiny and possessing their wealth " |
The current head of government Youssef Chahed and the head of the Tunis project, Mohsen Marzouq, and others who have defected from Tunisia's disorganized Tunis movement are marketing for themselves as the next alternative to this failed experiment, while they have set up Tunisia's Call for Elections program in 2014 rather than Baji Kayed Sibsi alone. So I think that whoever relied on the symbols of this system is wrong because its result is failure.
- I talked about the existence of interventions by what it calls the axis of Arab evil to end the Arab revolutions. Who is this axis? Do you think that he has the possibility to intervene in the upcoming elections and influence them in favor of parties?
The Axis of Evil is the regime of the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which have been established in favor of Israel and dominant Western economic and military pressure groups. These regimes are the main task of breaking the spirit of Arab revolutions and preventing the Arab peoples from determining their fate and possessing their wealth, because they know with certainty that if this change occurs, the equation will change throughout the region.
This axis is ready to intervene in the media and corrupt money and weapons to abort revolutions. I am sure that they will try to intervene in Tunisia, especially if I declare my candidacy, and they will do their utmost to prevent this candidacy, because they can not accept someone like me.
Once again, I say that the only solution to prevent blatant external interference is to hold people in all sectors of customs, security, control bodies and others to defend the emerging Tunisian democracy and expose all manifestations of external interference.
- Like other parties, your party has lived through the movement of Tunisia. Why did your party's activity remain limited and did not play a strong role in the opposition, even though you were accused of obtaining large funding from Qatar?
Political action in Tunisia has become very difficult, especially in a difficult transition period. We live in a decline in political action in exchange for the extension of the work of associations, and we live the crisis of ideology, which has become a rare currency, as we live in the era of racism and individualism, and this made collective work very difficult.
Therefore, the formation of a successful political movement in these circumstances is a miracle. But we have no other choice but to continue party activity, despite the fact that we are experiencing great difficulties, especially as our party is considered semi-confined to the media and depends only on its limited financial resources and does not receive foreign funding from Qatar, as they accuse us of doing so. Nevertheless, we are working to create alliances, as we did with the Wafa movement and the other Tunisian initiative, and we are trying to expand this alliance in the hope that we will have an influential parliamentary bloc.
- If I win the next elections, will you be able to change the situation for the better as the old regime continues to control the administration?
| " The most important thing Tunisia needs in the coming years is to have a stable five-year government to achieve political stability and to save the economy " |
When I broke ties with Syria, Baji Qayed al-Sibsi launched a campaign against me, but when he succeeded me, he was unable to reopen the Syrian embassy, because he has to wait for the green light from Saudi Arabia and other forces that intervene in Tunisia.
- A number of observers believe that you are a successful human rights man, but you do not have the wits of politics and its conspiracies.
This is strange. On the one hand, people complain about the dirty politicians who change their minds according to their interests. Then a person like me comes to them. Thank God he did not steal them, and he did not send any of them to torture. He did not avenge his political opponents. Do you need a man who is defending your rights and freedoms, or do you need a shrewd shrewd person to laugh at your lips?
- There are fears that the next parliament will be formed from scattered parliamentary blocs that are difficult to achieve government stability. What are the risks to the country?
The most important thing Tunisia needs in the coming years is to have a stable five-year government to achieve political stability and to save the economy. The economic wheel is being disrupted by political instability. I think it is a crime for the country to continue the political crisis as it has been in the current parliament, which is considered the worst parliament in Tunisian history. It is therefore necessary to form a government of high-caliber political capacity to reform the situation.
But if the legislative elections - which will take place on October 6 - a split parliament at the time, I imagine that the president will have the right to dissolve parliament and put the problem on the people.
[Asharq Al-Awsat] In the past elections, I complained about abuses that affected their results against you. Do you expect that these suspicions will be repeated in the upcoming elections?
I am convinced that there are judges who have filed complaints from us about abuses in the 2014 elections. We had evidence of fraud and purchase of receivables and manipulation of the voter database, but the judiciary has not yet ruled on this matter. What I care about is that the Tunisian people know that there have been a number of abuses in order to be aware of these dangers. I call on the judiciary to take responsibility for the accountability of the forgers.
I believe that the next election battle will be about achieving true democracy, finding alternatives to the current corrupt authority, and on the issue of the independence of the national sovereign decision, because we know what role foreign intervention played in the last elections. Therefore, the Independent Electoral Commission must play its role with the rest of the monitoring bodies to prevent the flow of corrupt political money and reduce the impact of corrupt media because it is part of the electoral process.