TUNISIA APPROVES CABINET AFTER LENGTHY DEADLOCK
▶ Six of the 30 new ministers in Elyes Fakhfakh’s government are women, including the justice minister
After four months of wrangling among rival parties, Tunisia has a new government.
Parliament voted 129-77 with one abstention to approve the government of Prime minister-designate Elyes Fakhfakh early on Thursday.
An effort last month to form a government by a different prime minister failed.
The moderate Islamist party Ennahdha has six ministerial posts, more than any other party, because it came out on top in a parliamentary election in October. But it did not win a majority and has struggled to reach a compromise with other parties about who should run the government.
President Kais Saied had threatened to dissolve Parliament and call a new election if it could not agree on a new government. Tunisian labour and business leaders intervened, organising weeks of diplomacy to try to get rival parties to agree a compromise.
Six of the 30 new ministers are women, and for the first time one holds one of the most senior posts: Justice Minister Thouraya Jeribi.
The secular Heart of Tunisia party did not back Mr Fakhfakh and has been excluded.
“Ennahda probably decided that the costs of being blamed for government collapse outweighed the potential benefits of going towards new elections,” Eurasia Group, the risk consultancy, said after the party signalled its support last week. “The final result is a broad-based national unity government” reflecting a “delicate balancing act”.
The prime minister-designate’s Cabinet picks include a former PricewaterhouseCoopers associate, Nizar Yaiche, as finance minister, and puts Noureddine Erray, ambassador to Oman, in charge of foreign affairs. Mr Fakhfakh’s government was expected to take office on Friday.
Eurasia earlier described the situation as “a moderately positive outcome” for economic decision making, with the Cabinet including “some competent technocrats”. But it said the government will probably be “far from harmonious and its fractured support base will complicate and prolong negotiations over policy initiatives”.
The prime minister said the government’s focus will be on boosting the digital economy and tackling unemployment and violent extremism. He also wants to combat widespread disillusionment nine years after Tunisian protesters overthrew Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, built a new democracy and unleashed the Arab uprisings.
“If we have made significant progress on the road to democratisation, we are still very far from social and economic transition,” Mr Fakhfakh told legislators during the debate.
He said that nearly a million young people, including more than 200,000 with college degrees, are now unemployed, prompting many to leave the country – legally or illegally – to seek a better life elsewhere.
“The 11 million Tunisians must get to work and roll up their sleeves to build the country,” he said.
Ennahda, which came out on top in a parliamentary election in October, has the most ministerial posts