Alwaght- Tunisia’s Prime Minister Youssef Chahed named on Wednesday a new cabinet after reaching a deal with political parties following weeks of wrangling over posts.
Concessions over the cabinet will enable Chahed, in power for just over a year, to go ahead with tough public wage bill reforms and a pension system overhaul meant to improve Tunisia’s public spending and deficits as demanded by the International Monetary Fund.
Chahed appointed Ridha Chalgoum, a former finance minister close to ruling Nidaa Tounes party, as finance minister, and Lotfi Braham, another Nidaa Tounes ally, as interior minister, according to a statement from the premier’s office.
The Prime Minister also named one of his economic advisors, Taoufik Rajhi, who is a member of Islamist Ennahda party, to the new post of economic reforms minister.
Six years after a popular Islamic uprising ousted dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia is praised as a model of transition. But it still struggles to address demands for jobs and opportunities in marginalized regions.
Tunisian protesters in May this year forced the closure of oil pumping station in southern parts of the country.
Unemployed men held sit-ins and threatened to blockade oil and gas production to demand more for their marginalized regions.
Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi, was for the first time, ordered troops to be used in protecting industrial installations vital to Tunisia's economy. Protests, sit-ins and strikes in recent years have cost the North African state billions of dollars. The country is also an increase in terrorist attacks that have cost the lives of dozens of members of the security forces and also 59 foreign tourists after the 2011 uprising.
Despite a halt to major attacks, the country has been under a state of emergency since November 2015, when a suicide bombing in Tunis claimed by ISIS killed 12 presidential guards.
Last December Tunisia’s interior minister, Hedi Majdoub, told parliament that 800 Tunisian nationals who had travelled abroad to fight for Takfiri terrorist groups in other countries have since returned to Tunisia and pose danger to the country.
