Finally, Tunisia’s Prime Minister Habib Essid has announced his new government, which is composed of 42 ministers and a Secretary of State, among them eight women, two of whom head the ministries of culture and women. 

Finally, Tunisia’s Prime Minister Habib Essid has announced his new government, which is composed of 42 ministers and a Secretary of State, among them eight women, two of whom head the ministries of culture and women. 

Nidaa Tounes Party, a centrist party which ranked first in the elections, the Ennahda Movement, a rightist movement, which ranked second, and two small centrist parties, Afaq Tounes (Tunisian Horizons) and the Free Patriotic Union Party are the political parties that make up Essid’s government. With such a broad political spectrum some ask if it is a partisan coalition government, a national unity government, or a government dictated by necessity and imposed by a fragile political reality? 

Since assuming the post of prime minister on  January 5, 2015, Essid has been fighting partisan interests and sharp criticism that accompanied the government formation process.   

Having failed to convince major parties represented in Parliament to vote in favor of his government, which  he announced on January 23, amid great displeasure of the various political parties and personalities, Prime Minister Essid returned to point zero and started to renegotiate with parties about how to form the awaited government.

In contrast to the previous government, Essid’s coalition has witnessed the joining of the Afaq Tounes Party, a liberal-social party, with three ministerial portfolios, among them are the ministries of investment and external cooperation, which is held by the party’s Secretary General Yassin Ibrahim, and the Ennahda Movement Party, the newcomer, which has raised storms of protest for its participation in the government.

Ennahda again

Despite of its modest share of portfolios, with only the Ministry of Higher Education given to the official spokesman of the movement, Ziad Ladhari, and three other junior ministerial posts, this participation has reassured Essid that his government will win the confidence of the parliament with at least 170 votes and will also satisfy the ego of the Ennahda movement. However, this composition has raised resentment within Nidaa Tounes, which has witnessed divides among its leaders and popular base, with some supporting the participation of the Ennahda Movement in the government and others completely opposing it. 

Leaders of Nidaa Tounes found themselves in a very embarrassing position, especially knowing that the party’s election campaign was based on the slogan that the party would be the substitute for the Ennahda Movement, which failed in administrating the country’s affairs.

Historically, the Nidaa Tounes Party was founded to create a political balance and to prevent the Ennahda Movement from controlling key state positions and changing the shape of the state and society. Today, the rightist religious Ennahda Movement, and the rightist liberal Nidaa Tounses party are joining hands to rule Tunisia in the next five years. 

This strange rapprochement that has developed between Ennahda and Nidaa Tounes, has raised suspicion and political concerns among a sector of the civil society and many leftist parties, mainly the Popular Front coalition, which has shown distrust of Ennahda’s insistence on participation in the government and its eagerness to rule the country. 

Its position in the Parliament, as the second partisan force with 69 MPs, allows the Ennahda Movement to be a “striking force” and to take political revenge on the Nidaa Tounes Party, which was in the past one of the reasons for its exit from ruling the country, knowing that the party had led a fierce opposition against the Ennahda’s tendencies in the Constituent Assembly as well as in the street in the Bardo Leave sit in. 

But the Ennahda Movement has opted to extend its hand to Nidaa Tounes, and this has raised the ire of some of its supporters, who considered that the employment ministry given to the movement a poisonous gift because the employment file is one of the most critical files, if not solved people will resort to the streets again in the presence of more than 800 thousand unemployed people, one third of them are university graduates. 

Moreover, the stance of the Ennahda Movement has also raised suspicions and worries among its opponents on its real intentions and desperate attempts to obliterate any evidence incriminating it during its former ruling period. However, it seems that the Ennahda Movement does not care about what is being said about it because in the end, it has been able to reach what it had been aiming. This is especially true knowing that it was among the first parties to be enthusiastic about giving Essid, who held a security advisor position with Hamadi Jebali, former Secretary General of the Ennahda Movement during the first Troika government, the post of prime minister.   

Essid, who did not raise a partisan fuss and who was not confronted with rejection by most of the parties represented in the parliament when he was designated by the Nidaa Tounes Party, the first winner in the latest legislative elections, to head the government, although he is not one of the party’s leaders, raised a fuss among the defeated parties in the last election and some freedom fighters, who consider him an extension of Ben Ali’s era.

A silent politician

Sixty-six-year-old Habib Esside, finds himself confronting various and divergent views from powerful parties with strong and motivated popular base and influence in the Tunisian street. However, this street seems not to be much interested in the presence of Essid in his position as much as it is interested in the success of his anticipated government in solving its social problems— especially its economic ones. 

Beji Caid Essebsi was the one who made Essid return to the forefront of public life, when he granted him the interior minister position in his government after the revolution. This made many activists protest on suspicion of Essid’s involvement in torture, arrests, wiretapping and repression of peaceful demonstrations, such as the suppression of the Casbah sit-in on July 3, 2011.

This silent politician, as described by observers in Tunisia, was not saved by his silence.  There are many accusations against him, notably on his relationship with the former regime’s men and the falcons of Ben Ali, prominent among them is Abdullah Kallal, former interior minister, with Habib Essid serving as the head of his office from 1997 until 2000.

Critics of Essid believe that he is one of the statesmen affiliated with the ousted president and there are suspicions that he was involved in some of the human rights violations in the country.

The mysterious and controversial history of Habib Essid made him “a valuable catch” for those who spread rumors in a country where rumors often morph into hard facts.

Opponents of the new government believe that the presence of a personality like Essid heading it, will make it lose its strength and its wide constitutional powers in favor of the palace and the president, who will continue to hold all the political game’s threads and all key state functions. 

The aim behind Habib Essidd’s quest to form a government with the participation of the biggest and strongest forces and parties in the parliament is no longer a secret. He wants to make the opposition weak by involving all parties in ruling the country, including the Ennahda Movement. He wants not to leave any strong political force outside the ruling structure in order not to become a strong opposition with a good chance at confronting the government, which might take painful and unpopular decisions compelled by the constraints of the period. He knows that the presence of strong opposition outside the government will lead the public to protest against it or possibly even topple it.