In a move that unprecedented in their bilateral relations, Switzerland has rejected the nomination of former presidential advisor Walid Hajjam to serve as Tunisia’s ambassador to Bern.
Officials with knowledge of the affair told CASS that the Tunisian foreign ministry had received a formal letter of refusal from the Swiss authorities, declaring Hajjam persona non grata.
The Swiss move means the position, vacant for more than a year and a half, will remain so, undermining ties with a European capital that is of vital importance to Tunisia, both diplomatically and economically.
Following Switzerland’s refusal, the Tunisian ministry quickly prepared alternative options for Hajjam. Foreign Minister Mohamed Ali Nafti, on a visit to Abu Dhabi in early February, reportedly submitted an official request that Hajjam be accredited as ambassador to the UAE, where the position of Tunisian ambassador is also vacant.
Attempts to secure a position for Hajjam extended beyond appointments overseas, to administrative positions within the foreign ministry. Sources told CASS that he had sought the position of Director General of the ministry’s central offices. An office was even allocated to him on the fifth floor of the ministry’s headquarters, as the “Governance Department” of the minister’s office, intended as a preemptive step to guarantee him a higher position upon his return from his mission in the UAE. However, the ministry’s management rejected these attempts, given that he has no professional qualification for the position. His file was then referred to the Prime Minister’s Office to find an administrative consensus on his employment.
Is Tunisian diplomacy paralyzed?
Hajjam has reportedly been one of the main actors responsible for the disruption of Tunisian diplomacy since 2023. He has also played a role in keeping the position of ambassador to Switzerland vacant, with the aim of securing his own appointment there. That has deeply disrupted the diplomacy of Tunisia, for which Switzerland is an vital political and economic interlocuter in Europe.
Despite President Kais Saied’s repeated exhortations that diplomatic appointments should be based on competence and experience, the reality is that many key positions in the Tunisian diplomatic remain vacant due to certain factions’ control over the nominations process, with direct negative impacts on the country’s foreign relations.
While the ministry insists that seniority and merit are its main criteria in appointing ambassadors, its efforts to find a diplomatic position for a political figure like Hajjam, who was Saied’s political advisor in his first election campaign, raises questions about the political nature of such appointments.
The Hajjam affair reveals that networks of interest continue to play a major role within the Tunisian administration, with state institutions being paralyzed for the sake of securing positions for well-connected political figures—notwithstanding the question of whether this constitutes an easily-corrected administrative flaw or a broader system of nepotism.
Hajjam’s appointment to Switzerland—or the UAE—is less a diplomatic issue than an indicator of the current Tunisian state’s approach to managing the human and political resources of one of the most important branches of government. This could open the door to a broader debate about recruitment practices within the Tunisian diplomatic corps.
