TUNIS: Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali held last-ditch talks yesterday with a raft of party leaders as he hammered out a technocrat government designed to pull Tunisia out of its worst political crisis since the revolution.
Jebali has promised to announce the new government line-up on Saturday, and says he will resign if it is rejected by the National Constituent Assembly which is dominated by his own Islamist party Ennahda.
The embattled premier met the heads of all the parties in Tunisia’s ruling coalition, namely Ennahda’s Rached Ghannouchi, Ettakatol’s Mustapha Ben Jaafar and Mohamed Abbou of President Moncef Marzouki’s Congress for the Republic.
The meeting took place behind closed doors at a palace in the Tunis suburb of Carthage, which was surrounded by heavy security.
Jebali’s plan, first announced in the wake of public outrage at the killing of leftist leader Chokri Belaid, is broadly supported by secular opposition parties, trade unions and civil society groups, for whom it is the only way of out of the unfolding crisis. But it has met resistance from Jebali’s ruling Islamist party, in which he is considered a moderate, and which is planning demonstrations on Saturday to protest against the initiative.
The Islamists have joined ranks with Marzouki’s centre-left party and two other parties, in proposing that the new cabinet comprise both politicians and independents.
The crisis, which has for months been rocked by social unrest including protests that often degenerate into violence, has sown fear and uncertainty in the first country to undergo regime change caused by Arab Spring protests.
AFP
