Questions are being raised across the political spectrum on whether Tunisia's long-delayed International Monetary Fund loan will have the positive impact that many hope for. Other observers fear it will be too little, too late to save Tunisia’s drowning economy.

This would be Tunisia’s third loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), often referred to as the lender of last resort. The country currently owes the IMF $2.01 billion USD. Many fear that with or without the loan, Tunisia’s road to recovery will be a troubled one, especially as Moody’s has already stated that it will review and possibly downgrade Tunisia’s current Caa1 bond rating, flagging it as a country at high risk of default.

Tunisia’s increasingly popular far-right Free Constitution Party (PDL, Partie Destourien Libre), led by Abir Moussi, has gone so far as to pen a letter on Oct. 24 to the director of the IMF, following the staff-level agreement to loan Tunisia $1.9 billion USD. (That decision is not yet final.)

Moussi warned that Tunisia is not currently in a fit state to take on a new loan agreement and demanded greater transparency. No agreement should be signed that “citizens had not seen or discussed democratically in the competent legitimate institutional frameworks,” she stated.