Tunisia creates an Islamist coalition

TUNIS: Tunisia yesterday presented its new coalition government, dominated by the secular Nidaa Tounes party but also including its Islamist rivals, as it prepares to tackle security problems and a faltering economy. Prime Minister Habib Essid announced the makeup of his new cabinet, which had initially been abandoned after the moderate Islamist Ennahda party warned it would vote against a line-up that included none of its members.

ìWe have made changes... to widen the composition of the government with the participation of other political parties,î Essid said. The new cabinet, which includes a minister and three state secretaries from Ennahda, will be put before parliament for a vote of confidence tomorrow. ìWe have no more time to lose, we are in a race against the clock,î Essid said as he announced the line-up at the presidency. His government will be the first since landmark parliamentary and presidential elections last year that were the first freely contested polls in the history of the North African country. The anti-Islamist Nidaa Tounes of President Beji Caid Essebsi won the largest number of seats in Octoberís general election, with Ennahda coming second.

But Nida Tounes did not secure a majority and Ennahda, which holds 69 of parliamentís 217 seats, had rejected a cabinet in which it was not represented. Tunisia has struggled to form a stable government since it became the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings by ousting longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.— AFP