Tunisia premier faces no-confidence vote over new govt

TUNIS, Tunisia-Tunisia’s parliament passed a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Habib Essid on Saturday, effectively disbanding the government of the U.S.-trained agricultural economist.

Essid, 67, had told lawmakers before the motion was even passed that he already knew he would be put aside.

Essid’s government has been widely criticised for failing to tackle the country’s economic crisis and terror related issues.

That’s because Essebsi now has a month to pick a new prime minister, who in turn has a month to appoint a cabinet which has to be presented to parliament.

Tunisia will embark again on forming a new government after legislators fired the prime minister in the latest skirmish reflecting the struggle for political stability and economic growth in the birthplace of the Arab Spring.

But some observers believe that the vote is also a outcome of the prime minister’s detachment from party politics.

“This is the first time in Tunisia that such an event happened; first time a government goes to parliament and a vote of no confidence is recorded”, he said from the capital, Tunis, after the vote.

Essid, a technocrat without any party background and used to be a close ally to Essebsi, has defended his government and expressed his shock about the timing chosen by the president to make the initiative of the new national unity government.

“The biggest fear today is a political void”, said La Presse. “The relation is quite obvious”, said Kais Arguoubi, another political analyst.

Essid’s authority has suffered amid continuing economic and social problems in the North African nation, the only country to successfully transition to a parliamentary democracy following the uprisings that rocked the Arab world in 2011. The unemployment rate in Tunisia was 15% in 2015.

A state of emergency, imposed in November when 12 presidential guards died in a suicide bombing that was also claimed by IS, is still in force.