Cabinet reshuffle exposes power struggle in Tunisia

President Beji Caid Essebsi addresses a news conference on Thursday. (AFP)
Updated 09 November 2018
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Cabinet reshuffle exposes power struggle in Tunisia

  • Just over two years ago, the 43-year-old Chahed became Tunisia’s seventh prime minister since the country’s 2011 revolution when he was appointed by President Beji Caid Essebsi
  • Chahed’s ability to govern was damaged in September when he fell out with Essebsi’s son Hafedh, the leader of the Nidaa Tounes party, who has been battling to oust the premier for months

TUNIS: In reshuffling his Cabinet this week, Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed has sparked new tensions with the man who appointed him and fed speculation that he intends to run in next year’s presidential poll.

Just over two years ago, the 43-year-old Chahed became Tunisia’s seventh prime minister since the country’s 2011 revolution when he was appointed by President Beji Caid Essebsi.

He has since become the longest serving of the country’s post Arab Spring premiers — a testament to the fragility of Tunisian politics.

But Chahed’s ability to govern was damaged in September when he fell out with Essebsi’s son Hafedh, the leader of the Nidaa Tounes party, who has been battling to oust the premier for months.

The reshuffle is designed to bring the country “out of political crisis,” Chahed said on Monday, after appointing 13 new ministers.

But some Nidaa Tounes lawmakers have slammed the move as tantamount to a coup.

The president on Thursday denied there was a rift between him and the prime minister.

Chahed “is not my adversary, and I am not his adversary,” Essebsi told reporters at the presidential palace.

But “things are not going in a good direction” and the reshuffle “displeased me,” he said.

The prime minister “must inform the head of state of everything he decides,” he added.

The power struggle previously came to a head in July, when the president called on Chahed to resign.

But Chahed has refrained from changing the foreign or defense ministers — posts that constitutionally require him to consult the president.

And the president has little leverage, beyond dragging out negotiations or persuading his party’s ministers to resign, including the defense minister.

Chahed can count on the backing of about 40 former and current Nidaa Tounes lawmakers — dissenters who followed him after the party split — when he submits his cabinet line-up to Parliament in the coming days.

And he can also expect the support of the Ennahda party, which has become the largest bloc in Parliament with 68 out of 217 seats, due to the implosion of Nidaa Tounes over the past two years.

But “the reason for the conflict between the Kasbah (the seat of government) and Carthage (the presidency) lies in the preparation of the next elections,” said political analyst Salaheddine Al Jourchi.

“It is the goal and compass of each.”

Premier Chahed has been in the hot seat for months due to his tussle with Hafedh Caid Essebsi, who is reported to have presidential ambitions and accused him in May of having “destroyed the party.”

The battle for power has reshaped political alliances.

It has precipitated the end of the consensus forged between Essebsi and Rached Ghannouchi, head of Ennahda, which sought to limit the polarization of political life after elections in 2014. The 2014 vote gave more power to Parliament.

Chahed “has freed himself from the paternal tutelage” of Essebsi, said political analyst Youssef Oueslati.

While many Tunisians expect Chahed to run for the presidency, his entourage says he is more interested in remaining in Parliament.

Meanwhile, 91-year-old Essebsi has left his own intentions hanging in the air.

The political instability risks worsening as Tunisia grapples with high unemployment and inflation, which are feeding into social tensions.

“However the crisis plays out, the victim in all of this is democracy, which Tunisians increasingly associate with instability and indecision,” said Sharan Grewal of the Brookings Institution think-tank.

What is clear is that Tunisia needs to form the constitutional court, which could adjudicate “any disputes arising with respect to the powers of the president and the prime minister,” he added.

Tunisia is the only country affected by the Arab Spring that has continued to democratize and open up political space.

“The political crisis is the proof that democracy has been concretely put into practice despite the negative aspects and obstacles,” said Jourchi.

Newspaper columnist Ziyed Krichen expects the struggle to rumble on until the presidential election scheduled for December next year.

“We live with the consequences of this open conflict... until the electorate” votes, he said.


Algeria facing growing calls to release French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal

Updated 5 sec ago
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Algeria facing growing calls to release French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal

“The detention without serious grounds of a writer of French nationality is unacceptable,” France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said
The European Parliament discussed Algeria’s repression of freedom of speech on Wednesday and called for “his immediate and unconditional release”

PARIS: Politicians, writers and activists have called for the release of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, whose arrest in Algeria is seen as the latest instance of the stifling of creative expression in the military-dominated North African country.
The 75-year-old author, who is an outspoken critic of Islamism and the Algerian regime, has not been heard from by friends, family or his French publisher since leaving Paris for Algiers earlier this month. He has not been seen near his home in his small town, Boumerdes, his neighbors told The Associated Press.
“The detention without serious grounds of a writer of French nationality is unacceptable,” France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Wednesday.
He added Sansal’s work “does honor to both his countries and to the values we cherish.”
The European Parliament discussed Algeria’s repression of freedom of speech on Wednesday and called for “his immediate and unconditional release.”
Algerian authorities have not publicly announced charges against Sansal, but the APS state news service said he was arrested at the airport.
Though no longer censored, Sansal’s novels have in the past faced bans in Algeria. A professed admirer of French culture, his writings on Islam’s role in society, authoritarianism, freedom of expression and the civil war that ravaged Algeria throughout the 1990s have won him fans across the ideological spectrum in France, from far-right leader Marine Le Pen to President Emmanuel Macron, who attended his French naturalization ceremony in 2023.
But his work has provoked ire in Algeria, from both authorities and Islamists, who have issued death threats against him in the 1990s and afterward.
Though few garner such international attention, Sansal is among a long list of political prisoners incarcerated in Algeria, where the hopes of a protest movement that led to the ouster of the country’s then-82 year old president have been crushed under President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
Human rights groups have decried the ongoing repression facing journalists, activists and writers. Amnesty International in September called it a “brutal crackdown on human rights including the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.”
Algerian authorities have in recent months disrupted a book fair in Bejaia and excluded prominent authors from the country’s largest book fair in Algeria has in recent months, including this year’s Goncourt Prize winner Kamel Daoud,
“This tragic news reflects an alarming reality in Algeria, where freedom of expression is no more than a memory in the face of repression, imprisonment and the surveillance of the entire society,” French-Algerian author Kamel Daoud wrote in an editorial signed by more than a dozen authors in Le Point this week.
Sansal has been a polarizing figure in Algeria for holding some pro-Israel views and for likening political Islam to Nazism and totalitarianism in his novels, including “The Oath of the Barbarians” and “2084: The End of the World.”
Despite the controversial subject matter, Sansal had never faced detention. His arrest comes as relations between France and Algeria face newfound strains. France in July backed Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara, angering Algeria, which has long backed the independence Polisario Front and pushed for a referendum to determine the future of the coastal northwest African territory.
“A regime that thinks it has to stop its writers, whatever they think, is certainly a weak regime,” French-Algerian academic Ali Bensaad wrote in a statement posted on Facebook.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer killed in Syria, SNN reports

Updated 20 min 31 sec ago
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Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer killed in Syria, SNN reports

DUBAI: Iranian Revolutionary Guards Brig. Gen. Kioumars Pourhashemi was killed in the Syrian province of Aleppo by “terrorists” linked to Israel, Iran’s SNN news agency reported on Thursday without giving further details.
Rebels led by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham on Wednesday launched an incursion into a dozen towns and villages in northwest Aleppo province controlled by Syrian President Bashar Assad.


Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire unlikely to hold: UK ex-spy chief

Updated 27 min 54 sec ago
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Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire unlikely to hold: UK ex-spy chief

  • Richard Dearlove: Agreement suits both parties in ‘short to medium term’
  • Deal leaves Iran ‘exposed’ as its Lebanese ally is temporarily incapacitated

LONDON: The ceasefire deal struck this week between Israel and Hezbollah is unlikely to hold, a former head of MI6 has warned.

Richard Dearlove, who headed the British intelligence service from 1999 to 2004, told Sky News that the deal, which came into effect on Wednesday, is a “retreaded agreement from 2006.”

That initial deal was designed to keep Hezbollah away from the border region with Israel, overseen by the Lebanese military and the UN, but in effect it “did absolutely nothing,” he said.

This week’s deal suits both Israel and Hezbollah “in the short to medium term,” Dearlove said, adding: “The Israelis must know how much of the infrastructure of Hezbollah they’ve taken down … They haven’t taken it down completely, but maybe the Lebanese state can reassert some of its authority as the government of Lebanon and keep Hezbollah to an extent under control. We just have to wait and see what happens.”

He said the ceasefire deal will be a blow to Hezbollah’s backer Iran, leaving the latter “exposed” with one of its allies temporarily incapacitated.

But he warned that this could escalate into “direct” confrontation between Israel and Iran were the latter to launch another ballistic missile attack.


Israeli FM: ‘No justification’ for ICC to take steps against Israeli leaders

Updated 51 min 38 sec ago
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Israeli FM: ‘No justification’ for ICC to take steps against Israeli leaders

  • The foreign minister also said Israel would finish the war in Gaza when it “achieves its objectives”

PRAGUE: Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar said on Thursday that the ICC had “no justification” for issuing arrests warrants for Israeli leaders, in a joint press conference with Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky.
Saar told Reuters Israel has appealed the decision and that it sets a dangerous precedent.
The foreign minister also said Israel would finish the war in Gaza when it “achieves its objectives” of returning hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza and ensuring the Iranian-backed group no longer controls the strip. Saar said Israel does not intend to control civilian life in Gaza and that he believes peace is “inevitable” but can’t be based on “illusions.”


Pope Francis set to visit Turkiye for Council of Nicaea anniversary in 2025

Updated 28 November 2024
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Pope Francis set to visit Turkiye for Council of Nicaea anniversary in 2025

  • The pope had already expressed in June the desire to go on the trip despite international travel becoming increasingly difficult for him

ROME: Pope Francis said on Thursday he planned to visit Turkiye’s Iznik next year for the anniversary of the first council of the Christian Church, Italian news agency ANSA reported.
The early centuries of Christianity were marked by debate about how Jesus could be both God and man, and the Church decided on the issue at the First Council of Nicaea in 325.
“During the Holy Year, we will also have the opportunity to celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the first great Ecumenical Council, that of Nicaea. I plan to go there,” the pontiff was quoted as saying at a theological committee event.
The city, now known as Iznik, is in western Anatolia, some 150km southeast of Istanbul.
The pope had already expressed in June the desire to go on the trip and the spiritual head of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, had said the two men would celebrate the important recurrence together but no official confirmation had been made yet.
Despite international travel becoming increasingly difficult for him because of health issues, Francis, who will turn 88 on Dec. 17, completed in September a 12-day tour across Asia, the longest of his 11-year papacy.