The New York Times has published an articled titled “Financing Questions Shadow Tunisian Vote” which examines widespread claims that the Ennahda Party, lead by Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Rachid Ghannouchi, has had lavish financing from Gulf sources. The article begins:
As Tunisians prepare to vote Sunday in the first election of the Arab Spring, the parties and their supporters have ramped up a bitter debate over allegations about the influence of “dirty money” behind the scenes of the race. Liberals, facing an expected defeat by the moderate Islamist party Ennahda, charge that it has leapt ahead with financial support from Persian Gulf allies. Some Islamists and residents of the impoverished interior, meanwhile, fault the liberals, saying they relied on money from the former dictator’s business elite. And all sides gawk at the singular spectacle of an expatriate businessman who made a fortune in Libyan oil and returned home after the revolution to spend much of it building a major political party. In the first national election since the ouster of the strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January, voters will choose an assembly that will govern the country while writing a new constitution. The vote is a bellwether for the Arab world, and the debate over the role of political spending is a case study of the forces at play here and around the region. But the debate also illustrates the mixture of elation and worry that has accompanied Tunisia’s progress toward democracy: Freed from the overt coercion and corruption of Ben Ali’s regime, many now fear that more subtle forces are trying to pull the strings from behind the scenes, in part though political money. In a country with virtually no previous grass-roots political participation, where more than a hundred new or little-known political parties have raced to introduce themselves to the public, “it is a very fast track, and whatever means they have at their disposal is going to make a big difference,” said Eric Goldstein, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who has tracked Tunisia’s steps since the revolt. Ennahda, which had a long history of opposition here before Ben Ali eviscerated it a decade ago, is widely expected to fare the best, and no one pretends that it owes its popularity only to its financial clout. Its moderate and modern brand of Islamic politics has struck a chord with many Tunisians. But for months, it has been at the center of attacks from liberal rivals and liberal-leaning election officials who accuse it of taking foreign money, mainly from the Persian Gulf. Islamist groups from Egypt to Lebanon are widely believed to rely on such support from the wealthier and more conservative gulf nations, but the charges have resonated especially loudly in Tunisia, in part because regulators have sought to stamp it out. “Everybody says that Ennahda is backed by money from the Arabian gulf,” said Ahmed Ibrahim, founder of the liberal Democratic Modernist Pole coalition, calling the outsize influence of foreign money a threat to Tunisia’s “fragile democracy.” Though Ennahda’s sources of financing have not been disclosed, its resources are evident.
Read the rest here.
As of this writing, Ennahda is claiming victory in the elections and a post discussing the victory claim contains detailed information on the Muslim Brotherhood and extremist background of Ennahda’s leader Ghannouchi.
Gulf sources are known to have financed Global Muslim Brotherhood activities in Europe.