Tunis: Tunisian Prime Minister Ali Al Arayedh unveiled a new coalition government led by the moderate Islamist Al Nahda party on Friday, saying it would serve only until an election later in the year.
Al Arayedh replaced Hamadi Jebali, who resigned following the assassination of secular politician Shukri Belaid on Feb. 6, which provoked the worst unrest in Tunisia since the uprising that overthrew President Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali two years ago.
Al Nahda’s coalition partners - the centre-left Al Takatol and President Monsef Marzouqi’s secular Congress for the Republic (CPR) - are the same parties as in the previous government.
“Our country needs national unity,” Al Arayedh told a news conference, saying his government would not last beyond this year, with elections likely to be held in October or November.
“You must be patient. The road to democracy is long,” said Al Arayedh, interior minister in the outgoing cabinet, which had struggled with Islamist-secular tensions as well as frequent popular unrest over unemployment and rising living costs.
Al Nahda has ceded control of several key ministries to independents in the new cabinet, with career diplomat Othman Jarandi named as foreign minister, Lutfi Bin Jeddo interior minister and Rachid Sabbagh defence minister.
Elyas Fakhfakh of Al Takatol, an economist, keeps the finance portfolio.
Jarandi, a former ambassador to the United Nations, has strong ties with international bodies and the West.
Bin Jeddo and Sabbagh are both judges. Bin Jeddo took part in an investigation into the killing of dozens of young men during the “Jasmine Revolution” that toppled Bin Ali and inspired revolts against autocrats around the Arab world.
Twelve members of Jebali’s cabinet stay on, including Agriculture Minister Mohammad Bin Salim and Human Rights Minister Samir Dilou, who are both members of Al Nahda, as well as Culture Minister Mehdi Mabrouk, an independent.
Al Arayedh tried but failed to induce other secular parties to join the coalition, one of whose main tasks will be to oversee polls in a transition process jolted by Belaid’s assassination.
His killing, which the authorities blame on strict Salafi Muslim militants, provoked three days of sometimes violent protests and exposed deep rifts between ruling Islamists elected to power and liberals who fear the loss of hard-won freedoms.
DISPUTES OVER ISLAM’S ROLE
Al Nahda’s leader Rashid Ghannoushi said last month that any stable government in Tunisia must be a coalition between moderate Islamists and moderate secularists.
Al Nahda, Al Takatol and CPR have governed in coalition since December 2011, following Tunisia’s first free election for a 217-seat National Constituent Assembly, which is supposed to draft a new constitution for the post-Bin Ali era.
Disputes over the role of Islam in politics and society have delayed a document which must be approved before the election.
Political turmoil in recent weeks has set back talks with the International Monetary Fund on a $1.78 billion loan and has prompted Standard and Poor’s lower its long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit rating of Tunisia.
The government raised most fuel prices this week as part of a drive to cut subsidies and reduce a forecast 2013 budget deficit of 6 percent of Gross Domestic Product.
The central bank warned last week that continuing political crisis would harm the economy, which relies heavily on tourism.
Tunisia’s transition has been calmer than those in Egypt and Libya, but the struggle over Islam’s place in government and society has emerged as a particularly divisive political issue.
Salafis, not all of whom espouse violence, want a broader role for religion in Tunisia, alarming secular elites who fear they will seek to impose their strict views at the expense of individual freedoms, women’s rights and democracy.
Salafis prevented several concerts and plays from taking place in Tunisian cities last year, saying they violated Islamic principles. Salafis also ransacked the U.S. Embassy in September during worldwide Muslim protests over an Internet video.
Secular groups have accused the Al Nahda-led government of a lax response to such attacks.
After Belaid’s death, Jebali tried to restore calm by proposing an apolitical cabinet of technocrats to organise a parliamentary election, but resigned after opposition from within his own Al Nahda party scuppered the plan.
