It is a race against the clock which has just started in Tunisia. After the resignation of the government of Elyes Fakhfakh under pressure from Ennahda, the President of the Republic Kaïs Saïed must find a new Prime Minister.

C, and an independent academic very widely elected in October but devoid of party, is given the heavy task of appointing a candidate within ten days. The latter will then have a month to gather a majority in a deeply fragmented Parliament.

This augurs for a new round of arduous talks, five months after the laborious formation of the outgoing government.

"Kaïs Saïed is walking a tightrope," said political scientist Slaheddine Jourchi, saying that with the failure of the Fakhfakh government, his room for maneuver has narrowed. Without a more flexible approach, it could "place the country in a delicate situation with potentially early elections".

Ennahda pushed the government towards the exit after trying in vain to reconfigure a coalition government within which it felt marginalized. He was allied against his will to parties claiming, like Kaïs Saïed, the values ​​of the revolution, and little inclined to compromise.

"We will see a transition from a coalition based on the values ​​of the 2011 revolution to a more pragmatic position, built on political interests," predicts Slaheddine Jourchi.

Ennahda, which has only 54 seats out of 217 despite being the main party in parliament, wants to integrate into the government coalition the secular liberal party Qalb Tounes of the television boss Nabil Karoui. The second parliamentary formation, Qalb Tounes has joined forces with Ennahda after campaigning against this party.

It remains to be seen whether President Saïed, a fierce independent hostile to partisan arrangements, will seek to nominate a consensus candidate or will take advantage of the situation to push through.

The specter of a new dissolution

"He has in his hands the major asset of the dissolution", indicates to AFP the professor of public law Slim Laghmani, estimating that he is ready to use this "cleaver" whereas "the current blocks have much to lose "in new elections.

A recent poll shows the breakthrough of a small party very hostile to Islamist parties and to parties of revolutionary persuasion, the Free Destourian Party (PDL) of Abir Moussi, ex-pillar of the Ben Ali regime.

Sign of the deleterious atmosphere, a plenary crucial Thursday for the democratic transition, aimed at finalizing the creation of a Constitutional Court, turned pugilist between PDL and Ennahda.  

If the absolute majority of deputies does not vote confidence in the government within the deadlines, the Assembly can be dissolved. Tunisia, which organized its last elections in October 2019, would then have 90 days to organize an advance poll - i.e. at the end of 2020.

These political frictions risk exacerbating already high social tensions and weakening the security situation, at a time when the conflict in neighboring Libya is internationalizing.

Tunisia, which has successfully taken drastic measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic, has been hit hard by the economic and social fallout from closing the borders.

Thousands of jobs are on the hot seat when the population is already exasperated by the lack of prospects, in a country where the official unemployment rate exceeds 30% in certain regions and among young people.

Mobilizations underway for several weeks in the south of the country, a largely marginalized area, started again with a bang on Thursday.

With AFP

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