Tunisia cabinet to include human rights, transitional justice ministry
Tunisia’s new government, to be announced this week, is likely to include a ministry for human rights, grievances and transitional justice, the prime minister has said
Manama: Tunisia’s new government, to be announced this week, is likely to include a ministry for human rights, grievances and transitional justice, the prime minister has said as he denied reports that his cabinet will have 51 ministers and vice ministers.
“The government will be made up of 26 ministries,” Hamadi Jebali said. “We initially agreed on 23 ministries, but following the decision to split the tourism and commerce ministries and establishing ministries for the environment and for technology, the number rose up to 26,” he said in Sidi Bouzid where Tunisia celebrated the first anniversary of the start of the revolution that ousted Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his regime on January 14.
The government will have many technocrats, but it will not be a technocrat cabinet, he said. He ruled out setting a ministry for immigration as reports that circulated in Tunisia last week suggested.
Although he did not divulge names, Jebali hinted that Tariq Dhiab, 1977 African Footballer of the Year who played for Tunisian powerhouse Esperance and for the national team, would be the next minister for youth and sports.
“He will be warmly greeted by the ministry staff because he was one of the very few who said ‘No’ during the rule of the dictator,” he said, referring to Ben Ali who ruled Tunisia with an iron fist from November 7, 1987 until January 14, 2011.
Jebali, the secretary general of Al Nahda, the moderate Islamist party that dominated Tunisia’s first true multiparty elections on October 23, was elected by the constituent assembly as prime minister.
