Tunisia opposition party welcomes new government

By: BOUAZZA BEN BOUAZZA

TUNIS - Tunisia’s opposition parties yesterday welcomed the government’s move to dissolve itself in favour of a caretaker body following the shocking assassination of a leftist politician.

The assassination of prominent government critic Chukri Belaid plunged the country into one of its deepest political crises since the overthrow of the dictatorship in 2011.
Belaid’s family and associates blamed the Islamist-dominated government of the Ennahda Party for complicity in the assassination and anti-government demonstrations erupted around the country Wednesday and had to be quelled with tear gas. Central Tunis was calm yesterday morning amid a heavy downpour.
In an autopsy attended by the country’s chief prosecutor Wednesday night, the coroner removed three bullets from Belaid’s body as well as pieces of glass from the car window that the gunmen shot him through.
His wife Basma had originally reported that he had been shot four times outside the family home. There has been no information about the identity of the killers.
Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali responded to the assassination late Wednesday by dissolving the government and announcing the creation of a caretaker body of technocrats to manage the country until summer elections - a longstanding opposition demand.
“It’s a recognition of the need to totally change the government which is incapable of running the country,” said Taieb Baccouche, secretary general of the right-of-centre Nida Tunis (Tunisia’s Call) party, one of the main opposition parties. “There has to be immediate consultation between all the parties involved to avoid unilateral decisions.”
However, A senior member of Tunisia’s ruling Islamist party on Thursday criticised the decision by Jebali to form a government of technocrats, reflecting the divisions within Ennahda.
“As far as we are concerned, our country still needs a government coalition based on the results of the elections on October 23, 2011” that Ennahda won, said Abdelhamid Jelassi, a member of the party’s political bureau.
Jelassi said the prime minister, who is number two in Ennahda, “had not consulted the party’s political bureau before making the announcement”.
Before the assassination, the governing coalition of Ennahda and two secular parties had been in drawn-out negotiations with the opposition over a cabinet reshuffle and expanding the coalition. Talks had been deadlocked, with each side accusing the other of intransigence.
Central Bank head Chedli Ayari even warned on Monday that the country’s tentative economic recovery was threatened by the political wrangling. The shock of the assassination - the first in post-revolutionary Tunisia’s history - appears to have stimulated the political class to get back around the table.
The details of the new technocrat government and how it will be selected are not yet clear.
“It is a courageous decision and a long time demand of the opposition,” said Mehdi Ben Gharbia of the opposition Democratic Alliance.
For ordinary Tunisians walking along downtown’s Bourguiba Avenue, the site of yesterday’s clashes in which one policeman died, the move was cautiously welcomed.
The year-old government has often been criticised for being unable to tackle the country’s problems, chief among them high unemployment and an economy battered by Europe’s financial crisis and too few tourists.
“Nobody knows what will be the next government, but we hope that their competence will bring a real change because until now nobody is satisfied with the current government,” said Adel Chikhaoui, an accountant.
Belaid had been a fierce critic of Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party that dominates the government, claiming that it turns a blind eye to violence perpetrated by extremists against other parties. His family said Belaid regularly received death threats - the most recent on Tuesday - but had refused to limit his high-profile activities.
Interior Ministry spokesperson Khaled Tarrouch called the assassination a “terrorist act” and said the politician had been shot point-blank several times.
Thousands of people quickly gathered in the heart of the capital to protest in front of the Interior Ministry, holding the government responsible for the slaying. That is the same broad, tree-lined boulevard where weeks of anti-government protests two years ago ousted Tunisia’s long-time dictator - and the crowds on Wednesday even chanted the same slogan: “The people want the fall of the regime!”
Elsewhere around the country, police responded to an assassination protest in the coastal city of Sousse with tear gas and Ennahda offices were attacked in several towns, according to Radio Mosaique and Radio Shems FM.
Belaid, a leading member of a leftist alliance of parties known as the Popular Front, was shot as he left his house in the capital, Tunis. He was taken to a nearby medical clinic, where he died, the state news agency TAP reported.Nampa-AP-AFP

---