Switzerland’s 19 January decision to freeze the assets of ousted Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and Côte d’Ivoire’s Laurent Gbagbo (still involved in a continuing post-election stand-off with Alassane Dramane Ouattara) raises more questions about the West’s selective indignation about political corruption. Other European governments announced that they might also freeze Tunisian assets after Switzerland said that it had identified suspect assets worth at least US$650 million and would give Premier Mohamed el Ghannouchi’s new government the chance to claim them back. Europe’s financial authorities have yet to explain why they failed to act previously, despite the fact that they had monitored the Ben Ali clan’s transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars to their jurisdictions for some 23 years.

In their defence, those authorities might cite the World Bank’s 2010 report which described the Tunis regime as far ahead of its neighbours in government effectiveness, the rule of law and the ‘control of corruption and regulatory quality’. Similarly, when asked why they raised no questions about the overseas financial assets of Gbagbo and his entourage, the authorities might cite World Bank and IMF recommendations that his regime’s high governance standards qualified it for billions of dollars in debt relief. In the light of growing regional discontent, Europe will presumably start to look more closely at transfers from Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Nigeria – to name just a few.