Tunis - Azhar Jarboui
Tunisian lawyer, Beshr el-Chabi Tunis - Azhar Jarboui Tunisian lawyer, Beshr el-Chabi, who recently filed a lawsuit demanding President Moncef Marzouki's mental status to be medically examined, said he decided to take this move after seeing President Marzouki repeating conducts "that couldn't be made by a mentally stable person." "I wonder if he has ever realised that he is no more in the opposition and is now the country's president. He can't stop complaining about his government's decisions whilst he is the first to be held responsible for them," said Beshr el-Chabi in an interview with Arabstoday. Marzouki was quoted quite a few times denouncing decisions and policies of the government led by the Islamist party Ennahda, who are his partners in the ruling troika coalition in Tunisia. The most famous incident was when the Tunisian President lashed out strongly at the his government's decision to hand over Muammer Gaddafi - last prime minister - Baghdadi Mahmoudi to Libya's interim government. Marzouki opposed the decision saying that he finds no guarantees that Mahmoudi will receive a fair trial in Libya during the transition period. Marzouki was also quoted recently as saying that Ennahda are trying to build a new dictatorship in Tunisia by imposing their control over all the state's authorities. His comments were denounced by his Islamist partners, although Ennahda's chief Rached Ghannoushi said that the president "didn't mean what was understood from his words." Chabi also gave examples for some conducts which he found strange to be made by Tunisia's leader of the state. "I just could not understand his conducts, for example when I saw him throwing flowers into the sea to show sympathy with more than 70 Tunisians who drowned in the Mediterranean sea, while they were trying to infiltrate across Italy's shores, or when he made an official reception to the girl who was raped by three policemen and granting her an official apology in the name of all the Tunisians despite the case being still under investigation," Chabi said. The Tunisian lawyer went on to say that electing Marzouki as president of Tunisia by the Constituent Assembly "was a fault which his partners in the troika coalition have to apologise for," because their fault "has affected Tunisia's reputation in the world." Chabi stressed that he only assumed his right as a citizen by the lawsuit he filed against the president, recalling that former president Habib Borguiba was forced to mental examination in the last stage of his rule after his aides found that his age was no more allowing him to be at the right mindset to assume his duties as president. A member of Marzouki's party, the Conference for the Republic, has pulled out of the party more than a month ago in protest of Marzouki "mixed and controversial comments and conducts. The member, Taher Hamila, also said he believes the president should be subject to mental examination, but it was not clear if he was mocking or speaking seriously.