Tunisia's Ruling Islamist Party to Pick New Hardline Prime Minister

Tunisians protest in the aftermath of the assassination of Chokri Belaid in early Feb. 2013. The government has been dissolved pending fresh elections., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Tunisia’s ruling Islamist party to pick new hardline prime minister

February 22, 2013 03:44
Rt.com

Tunisia’s main political party, the Islamist Ennahda, is set to pick a new hardline PM, following the resignation of Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, who has refused to head the new government amid political turmoil.

The names of some of the first candidates have already been released based on local media reports. Among them are Tunisia’s Justice Minister and the Minister of Agriculture. A party official told Reuters earlier that they didn’t wish to pick anyone associated with the moderate era of ex-President Ben Ali, opting instead for someone from the party’s hardline wing.

Former PM Jebali tendered his resignation on Tuesday, after his plan for a non-partisan technocratic government to deal with the political crisis in the country was shot down by his own constituents. Nonetheless, the party leader Rached Ghannouchi had been expressing his desire for Jebali to remain as head of government.

On Thursday, however, the former PM made a televised address to the nation to apologize for “failing and disappointing” the people, in which he has urged the country to unite, stressing it’s the only way to solve the nations political rift. Jebali has also said that “Tunisians must be patient during the coming months…demands and sit-ins must stop until the revolution wins.” However, he said he was optimistic.

Fresh political unrest has erupted in Tunisia following the February 6 murder of a prominent opposition leader, Chokri Belaid. This led to the resignation of some MPs from the moderate Congress for the Republic party (CPR). The aftermath of the events has been dubbed as the worst crisis in the country since the start of the Arab Spring, which toppled the former President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and caused a subsequent wave of protests and violent rallies against dictatorial rulers across the Arab world.

The murder of the secular opposition leader has exposed deep political divisions that exist between Tunisia’s liberal-minded moderates and the country’s ruling Islamist Ennahda party. This is despite the fact that many considered Tunisia to be the poster child for change in the Arab world, given the strikingly low amount of casualties in their January 2011 version of the Arab Spring.

While the world awaits Ennahda’s next choice of Prime Minister, police have arrested several suspects behind the murder of Chokri Belaid, according to a statement from Interior Minister Ali Larayedh. He said “the investigation has progressed to the point that suspects have been arrested”, but declined to comment further or specify the suspects’ identities.