Centrum Stosunków Międzynarodowych - 03 August 2016: Youssef Chaded named new PM in Tunisia

On Wednesday, August 3, the president of Tunisia, Beji Caid Essebsi, has named Youssef Chaded as the new PM. Chaded, 41, is an agricultural engineer with an academic background and had been serving as the minister for local affairs before the nomination. He now has 30 days to form the cabinet and get it approved by a parliamentary vote. Commentators expect him to secure the necessary votes easily despite opposition parties accusing him of inappropriate family ties with the president. The previous PM, Habib Essid, received a vote of no-confidence over claims of mismanagement of economic reforms and security, forcing the appointment of a replacement. Both Chaded, his predecessor, and president Essebsi are members of the secular Nidaa Tounes (Tunisia’s Call) party, which has 86 of 217 MPs in the Tunisian Parliament

Tunisia is currently governed by a broad coalition of two main political forces, the secular Nidaa Tounes and the moderate Islamist Ennahda (Renaissance). The coalition was formed in the aftermath of the parliamentary elections in 2014 in which none of the parties managed to secure an outright majority. Since then the government has been struggling with a shaky economic situation, particularly the high unemployment, and security threats, most glaringly showcased by attacks on tourists in the Bardo National Museum and on the beach in Sousse in 2015.

The Tunisian political system has exhibited remarkable resilience in the face of these problems. The current political arrangement in an indirect result of the 2013 compromise, made after the assassination of two leftist politicians and the effects of the Egyptian coup d’etat led to a political crisis. The mediation by the Tunisian National Dialogue Quarter, later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, succeeded in a negotiated replacement of Ennahda-dominated government by a technical cabinet and established the rules of peaceful change of government. Besides the role of the Quartet, the proportional voting system, which forces coalition-making, and the cautious, pro-democratic strategy of Ennahda were instrumental in securing a compromise solution