Tunisia: duel at the top of the state, against a backdrop of strong social tensions

Tunisian Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi (left) presents his government's list to President Kaïs Saïed, August 24, 2020. Tunisian Presidency / AFP

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The head of government presented eleven new ministers in the hemicycle who received Parliament's vote of confidence.

This political reshuffle is not to the taste of the President of the Republic who said all the bad things he thought about this reshuffle.

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With our correspondent in Tunis,

Michel Picard

This is too much reshuffle for President Kaïs Saïed.

However, he himself appointed Hichem Mechichi as president of the government last summer so that he could put in place a team of technocrats empowered to reform.

But very quickly, the head of government, for fear of parliamentary blockages and games of alliances, broke presidential confidence by approaching the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party, the first force in Parliament and political enemy of the head of the State.

In a final gesture of affront to the palace of Carthage, Hichem Mechichi proceeded to a reshuffle after having dismissed even the Minister of the Interior, deemed close to the President of the Republic.

The latter therefore did not deprive Monday evening of lecturing the Prime Minister.

He accused him of breaking the Constitution and of choosing four ministers who are suspected of conflicts of interest.

In Tunisia, the semi-parliamentary regime, resulting from the 2014 Constitution, grants broad prerogatives to the head of government and limits those of the head of state who could all the same, by his posture, attract new support.

The two men are now in open conflict, fueling political instability which, along with the economic and social crisis, has led to protests in recent days.

Several hundred demonstrators came to Parliament yesterday to shout their anger against the system in place,

police violence

, economic difficulties, but also to demand the release of the thousand young people arrested last week during clashes with the police.

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• Tunisia

• Kaïs Saïed