Ennahda comments ‘threat’ to presidency: Tunisia leader

By Yosra Ouanes

TUNIS

Recent statements by the Ennahda movement implied a “threat” to the Tunisian presidency, President Caid Beji Essebsi said Thursday.

Earlier this week, Ennahda criticized a recent meeting between Essebesi and the lawyers of two leftist leaders assassinated in 2013, saying the president’s direct involvement in the case threatened to undermine judicial independence.

In a Thursday address to Tunisia’s National Security Council at the presidential palace in Carthage, Essebsi blasted Ennahda's assertion, saying: "We will not tolerate these threats and will resort to the judiciary."

"I am not opposed to any party and have no problem with [Ennahda]," the president said.

"I listen to any party that wants to meet me,” he said, in reference to his meeting with the two lawyers. “But I can’t control what they say; I only listen.”

In 2013, Chokri Belaid, the leader of Tunisia’s opposition Democratic Patriots Party, and Mohamed Brahmi, a member of the People’s Movement Party, were both assassinated in separate incidents that remain unsolved to this day.

Last month, Tunisia’s judicial board accused Ennahda of maintaining "a secret apparatus" for carrying out political assassinations -- an allegation the movement strenuously denies.