Tunisia: Understanding Conflict 2012 - Johns Hopkins School of ...

with Laryssa Chomiak, SAIS group meeting, 26 January 2012). Several of the other large
parties, with the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) being the most glaring example,
largely relied on advertising campaigns to communicate with voters in urban areas.
It also should be mentioned that parties in Tunisia had to overcome the residual
wariness of a population that was taught to believe that politics is a dirty and corrupt
game.
Funding and Resources
Lacking the well-oiled fundraising machinery that usually is built over multiple elections,
most Tunisians parties were unable to generate enough financial support to pay for largescale
campaign operations. There were a few exceptions, however. Ennahdha, the PDP
and Free Patriotic Union (UPL) appeared to have a sizeable fundraising advantage over
their competition, though the source of the funds was not always clear. Some of the
secular parties accused Ennahdha of taking money from Gulf states, a charge that the
party’s leader Rachid Ghannouchi has denied. He claims that the party’s funds come
from business leaders within the country. However, a 22 October 2011 New York Times
article cites other party officials as admitting that Ennahdha has accepted taken
contributions from Gulf states for its charity work. This highlights the problematic “gray
areas” arising from a movement that blurs the line between being a social and political
phenomenon. It also underscores the challenge of structuring a political system not to
give undue advantage to Islamist forces that are embedded in society through mosques
and charities in a way that purely secular political parties never could achieve (unless
labor parties merged with strong labor unions). Aside from Ennahdha, the PDP was
rumored to have benefited from closes ties to Tunisian business, including many Ben Ali
backers (Kirkpatrick, 22 October 2011). The source of the UPL’s lavish spending was
less secret: its founder, Slim Riahi, made his fortune in Libyan oil services and property
development.
The clear financial imbalance between parties led Tunisian authorities in June
2011 to put a cap on campaign spending and ban foreign contributions. In addition, an
advertising moratorium was imposed until the official period for campaigning began on 1
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