Fix it or step down, president tells Tunisia’s PM

TUNIS: Tunisia’s prime minister should either urgently address the country’s political and economic crisis or step aside, the president has said.

The admonition by Beji Caid Essebsi during a television interview comes as international investors signal deepening concerns about the economy, and ordinary Tunisians turn on politicians they see as more interested in jockeying before presidential elections next year.

Prime Minister Youssef Chahed must “move to change the situation and improve it”, Essebsi said on Nessma TV. “If that is not possible, then he must resign or to go to parliament” for a vote of confidence, he said.

“The disagreement between the political forces cannot continue,” the president said in a reference to the dispute between a faction of the Nidaa Tounes party that wants Chahed to step down and the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, which opposes the move as destabilising. The political and economic situation in Tunisia is “bad and has reached a severe crisis that cannot be continued”, Essebsi said.

Tunisia has avoided the worst of the violence and political upheaval that gripped the region since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. Yet, nine governing cabinets have failed to revive the economy, a situation that World Bank Middle East and North Africa vice-president Ferid Belhaj last week described as “acute”.

The key tourism sector is showing signs of recovering after terrorist attacks in 2015, but the scale of the challenge is daunting for the nation’s bickering leaders.