Tunisian Leader Ushers In Loyalist Ministers After Power Shift

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TUNIS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Tunisia’s president swore in a government with loyalists taking up key positions in the finance and the interior ministries, his latest step to reshape the country after suspending parliament more than two months ago.
The moves come after President Kais Saied sacked the prime minister and suspended parliament in July, saying he acted to save the country from economic and political mismanagement. Opponents called it a coup. The political crisis has further delayed a long-awaited deal with the International Monetary Fund and plans to sell debt overseas.

Sihem Nemsia Boughdiri was confirmed as finance minister, after she was appointed in caretaker capacity. Taoufik Charfeddine, a career lawyer who managed Saied’s campaign for the presidency in 2019, was appointed interior minister, a role he had taken up for few months last year. Othmane El Jerandi remains foreign affairs minister.

Saied’s political moves have particular regional significance because Tunisia was the fullest democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring uprisings a decade ago.

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The government is led by Najla Bouden Romdhane, the first woman to hold the role in the North Africa. Around a third of the ministers are women, including at the culture, energy and trade ministries.

Romdhane, who had worked at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, was picked about a week after Saied assumed sweeping powers that allow him to govern by decree. That was seen as a possible precursor to an attempt to amend the constitution in a rare fully fledged Arab democracy.

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Saied urged the new government to work to defend Tunisia from looters of public funds and ploys fomented by domestic and foreign saboteurs he later called “hyenas and lions”. 

Romdhane vowed the administration will work to restore trust and “quickly revive” the economy by enabling entrepreneurship and improving citizens’ purchase power, she told local media after the ceremony. “Our priority is to combat corruption, which is spreading day by day,” she added.

Source: Bloomberg Business News

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