How is Erdogan’s ‘success formula’ related to the Tunisian Ennahda’s money-laundering case?
Something critical is missing from the coverage of Ennahda cases in Tunisia and Turkey
Rachid Ghannouchi, Ennahda's 81-year-old president and one of the foremost ideologues of political Islam, appeared before a court in Sousse in November and was heard for 14 hours as part of a money-laundering and incitement to violence investigation. The investigation began in June 2022, and the bank accounts of Ghannouchi and a dozen of his family members, including his son Moaz and son-in-law, former Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdeselam, were frozen. Moaz Ghannouchi and Abdesselam had left Tunisia. Since then, Rachid Ghannouchi has been barred from leaving the country as part of another investigation into the assassinations of two leftist leaders, Mohamed Brahmi and Chokri Belaid, in 2013.
Several investigations into Ghannouchi and Ennahda members are currently underway. The Instalingo case, which began in October 2021, investigates a company called Instalingo and contends that Ennahda leaders are suspected of organising an armed uprising against the current president, Kais Saied, through this company. The Instalingo case is now linked to another financial organisation called Namaa Association. Abdel Karim Suleimani, a former Ennahda member and businessman, was questioned about his ties to Instalingo and Namaa. According to the prosecutor, Suleimani and others within Ennahda conspired in a money-laundering scheme, received foreign financial support, amassed illicit wealth, and allegedly used some of that money to send jihadists to Syria and Iraq. Tunisia's Ministry of Interior does not provide much information, let alone a summary of proceedings. Indictments in these cases are also pending.
According to sources at Tunisian radio news station Mosaique FM, the Namaa Association case, which involves not only Ghannouchi and his family members but also former Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, is investigating "suspicious money after the January 2011 revolution," totaling 30-35 million dollars through front companies. Other sources claim a Qatari charity linked to the Emir of Qatar is also involved in this scheme.
The Tunisian Defense Authority's Head, Reda Al-Radaoui, stated that while the Namaa Association was founded ‘to encourage foreign investment, it was also involved in the crimes of sending terrorists to conflict zones, particularly Syria. Foreign investment was just a cover for Namaa.’
Where does the AKP come into the picture?
It's intriguing to me that the link between the Namaa and the AKP is missing from Tunisian news outlets. Other than a passing mention of the cases against Ennahda without explanation, the Namaa case is almost non-existent in Turkish sources. However, the connection is conspicuous. The Namaa is AKP’s brainchild. Oh, yes. Allow me to transport you back to 2011. I'll try to be as brief as possible.
Namaa ('growth or development' in Arabic) was established on March 15, 2011, 14 days after Ennahda was legalised, as a non-profit organisation to connect and advise small and medium-sized businesses, as well as to attract foreign and domestic investors. (Assiyasi Net, 15 March 2011.) Hassan Malek, Khairat al-Shater's business partner, founded the Egyptian Business Development Association (EBDA -'start' in Arabic) three months before Mohammad Morsi took office in March 2012. Turkey's MÜSIAD (Müslüman İşadamları Derneği) was a key player in these foundations.
According to Malek, he modelled EBDA on MÜSİAD, an organization that was founded as an alternative to Turkey’s biggest secular business association, TÜSİAD (Türkiye Sanayicileri ve İş İnsanları Derneği). While TÜSIAD was close to the established state elites and committed to preserving secular principles, MÜSIAD represented the Anatolian small to medium-sized enterprises and had a close affinity with Islamist movements, especially the AKP’s mother movement, Milli Görüş.
The role of MÜSİAD in the AKP’s development should be clarified in order to appreciate the significance of the founding of EBDA in Egypt and Namaa in Tunisia. Following the postmodern coup of 28 February (1997), which toppled Erbakan’s government and his Refah Partisi, the military attempted to limit the Islamist businessmen’s activities and their influence on the economy. While MÜSIAD was threatened with being shut down, its then chairman, Erol Yarar (1990–99), was tried in semi-military courts for inciting hatred.
With the emergence of the AKP, the ideological common ground between this conservative bourgeoisie and the new party led to a new partnership of mutual support and benefit.’ The common quest of MÜSIAD and the AKP required a gradual but crucial process: the reorganization of Turkey’s political power structure. For this daunting task, the AKP relied on the social class that MÜSİAD represented, along with other tactics that I will not get into right now. The founding of EBDA in Egypt and Namaa in Tunisia, which offered a novel business model for these countries, was not an autonomous act or decision on the part of MÜSİAD but was an element within a ‘success recipe’ that the AKP offered the MB and Ennahda following the 2011 uprisings. Namaa and EBDA – had they thrived like MÜSİAD and cultivated an Islamic bourgeoisie – would have been the cornerstone of Ennahda’s and the MB’s survival.
In June 2012, a MÜSIAD team went to Tunis and organised several meetings for Namaa. They introduced Namaa to the commerce section of the Turkish Embassy. A dinner was also organized, at which Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi, then-head of Namaa Mohammed Kochlaf, and the former deputy president of MÜSIAD discussed ways to strengthen the two entities’ collaboration. [Mohammed Kochlaf is also among the businessmen close to Ennahda who are being investigated by the public prosecutor’s anti-terrorism office right now.] (Business News)] Namaa’s membership has risen to 1,000 small and medium-sized enterprises in 2018. The latest of these collaborations, for example, was to participate in the IBF webinar, in which MÜSIAD’s head of international relations and commerce committee, Zeki Güvercin, was a speaker. Namaa also participated in MÜSIAD’s business expo in November 2020.
'Engaged in the agri-food, information technology, textiles, and mass distribution sectors, these SME managers are not all supporters of Ennahha, but they are not opposed to it either: their common point is not to have access to the central circuits of foreign trade, still dominated by the elites of the old regime. Their participation in this association does not reveal either a commitment to the party or a pronounced religiosity, unlike the members of the Müsiad, but is explained above all by their desire to trade in Africa and Asia, especially with China.'1
According to one Namaa member, ‘the networks [of the Müsiad] have allowed him to see the big things... so you start doing bigger business than before...I have contacts with businessmen who manage millions of dollars. It boosts your self-esteem.’2
What we know, what we don’t know
1) The current president of Tunisia, Kais Saeid, is an autocrat. He persecutes the opposition in ways that are straight out of the playbook of any authoritarian. Since sacking the government and suspending the parliament in June 2021, he has been targeting his opponents, especially Ennahda. It does help that the mainstream media in Tunisia is usually anti-Ennahda.
2) Namaa was banned in 2022 as part of the aforementioned investigations.
3) Financial corruption investigations are difficult to assess without first reviewing the prosecutor's reports and indictments. Therefore, it is not possible to draw any conclusions as to whether or not the businessmen who are members of the Namaa committed crimes.
4) However, as a scholar who has spent the last five years researching Ennahda, I find the charges of "inciting violence" and "sending jihadists to foreign countries" are inconsistent with Ennahda’s character and history as an organisation.
5) My research demonstrates that the AKP provided Ennahda with financial and technical assistance during the Tunisian electoral campaigns of 2011 and 2014.
6) Delegations of Turkish businessmen visited Tunis in search of investment opportunities numerous times, particularly during Ennahda’s control of the economy. (2011–13, 2016–17).
7) Namaa irritated Tunisia's established business elite when it opted for a strategy similar to that of the MÜSİAD, which was to carry out its own business diplomacy to gradually access resources from the transnational network and impose itself as a trade broker in the international arena.3
8) What is certain is that Ennahda has been targeted by the President’s office and the judiciary due to its close ties to the AKP since 2011. And the AKP does not want to be involved. At all!
Dilek Yankaya, ‘Le Commerce Exterieur Comme Strategie d’Integration a l’etat. Le Parcours d’Obstacles d’une Assosication Patonale Issue du Mouvemant Islamiste en Tunisie’, Mondes en Développement, vol.50-2022/2, issue 198, p.96
Ibid.
Ibid, p.99.