When Tunisia was elected as a nonpermanent member of the UN Security Council on June 7, it was under the cloud of the Moncef Kartas affair. 

In January 2020, Tunisia will take its seat on the Security Council — it will be Tunisia’s fourth tenure as a nonpermanent member of the international body, but its first as a democratic republic. The question is whether the emerging democracy can redeem itself in the eyes of the international community in the coming six months, before Tunisia begins its two-year tenure at the Security Council.

On the afternoon of May 21, prior to the vote at the United Nations, Tunisian Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui was visiting Oslo, Norway, while back at home the scandal was still raging over Tunisia’s detention of Kartas — a member of the UN Panel of Experts on Libya — for 56 days on charges of treason and espionage. 

That afternoon, when news came through that Kartas was to be released, Jhinaoui said to the Norwegian journalist interviewing him at the time, “This will make my trip to New York much easier.” (The Norwegian journalist relayed Kartas' comments to Al-Monitor that afternoon.)