Tunisia Unveils New National Unity Government

Tunisian Prime Minister, Youssef Chahed on Wednesday, unveiled the lineup of a new government of national unity.
The government reshuffle, the 10th since 14 January 2011, comes after several weeks of consultations with political parties and organizations on the distribution of portfolios.

The key portfolios affected by the reshuffle are those of Finance, Interior and Defense, which are attributed respectively to Mohamed Ridha Chalghoum, Lotfi Braham and Abdelkrim Zbidi.

Six years after the beginning of the Jasmine Revolution, Tunisia has embraced a democratic rule of law, along with all of the swings and roundabouts that can entail.

However, the country, considered as a rare success story of the Arab Spring, has failed to resolve the issues of poverty, unemployment, regional disparities and corruption.

Chahed, 41, the youngest prime minister Tunisia has had since independence, vowed to press ahead with economic reforms sought by international lenders.

He has named one of his economic advisors, Taoufik Rajhi, who is a member of Islamist Ennahda party, to the new post of economic reforms minister.

Tunisia’s statistic agency (INS) has said it expected the country’s economy to grow by over 2 percent this year.

According to the INS, Tunisia’s economy grew 1.9 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2017 with contributions from the agricultural and service sectors.