New earthquake in Tunisia: Jemli’s gov’t fails and Ennahda loses its parliamentary majority
The beginning of 2020 has brought with it a new earthquake
for Tunisia’s Brotherhood-affiliated Ennahda movement after the parliament
refused to give a vote of confidence to the government of pro-Brotherhood Prime
Minister-designate Habib Jemli.
What happened?
"I chose a team of talented people to take over the
ministries and their deputies on the basis of integrity and clean hands,"
Jemli had said before the Tunisian parliament to describe the 42 ministers and
deputies in his government to obtain a vote of confidence.
Despite this, the Ennahda-backed government, which was the
president had mandated to be formed in November 2019, did not win a majority of
votes during the session in parliament, as 72 MPs voted in favor, 134 were opposed,
and three declared their abstention. This indicates the downfall of Jemli’s
government and a worsening of Ennahda’s position within the country.
The parliamentary vote showed the extent of the
Brotherhood’s isolation, as the Jemli government was only supported by Ennahda
with 52 votes and the Dignity Coalition with 21 votes, which did not garner the
109 out of 217 votes the government needed to obtain confidence.
Meanwhile, the formation of the Brotherhood government was
opposed from several directions, led by six out of eight blocs in parliament,
namely the Democratic Bloc (108 seats), which is divided between the Tahya
Tounes (Long Live Tunisia) party (14 seats), the Qalb Tounes (Heart of Tunisia)
party (38 seats), the Reform Front (Islah) bloc (15 seats), and the Democratic
Current and People's Movement (41 seats).
A government hovering around corruption
Tunisian Prime Minister-designate Habib Jemli delivered a
speech to the People's Assembly in order to gain the confidence of the
parliament, during which he asserted his fight against corruption, saying, “We
expect your support on the basis of our work and our program, and not on the
basis of our [political] color. We are an independent government, reaching out
to everyone and dealing with the entire political spectrum without
discrimination.”
This contradicts what was announced by the Tunisian National
Anti-Corruption Authority in statements to the government news agency TAP,
where it indicated that they had waited for a request from Jemli to obtain the
files of new members of government, but he did not.
The authority added that it had taken the initiative to send
the files of the proposed names, as it has done with all the previous
governments, including those of former prime ministers Habib Essid and Youssef
Chahed; however, Jemli did not care about these files.
Jemli continued to nominate the names he chose despite the investigation
into the candidate to head the Ministry of Finance, Abdul Rahman al-Khashtali,
on charges related to financial liability.
What's next?
According to the third paragraph of chapter 89 of the
Tunisian constitution that was approved in 2014, if the time limit passes for
the formation of the government, or if a problematic government does not obtain
the confidence of the People's Assembly, then the president shall consult the
parties, parliamentary blocs and coalitions with the aim of assigning the best personality
to form a government within a maximum period of a month.
In the event that four months have passed since the first
mandate by the president and the government has not been formed, then the president
has the right to dissolve the People’s Assembly and call for new legislative
elections within 45 and 90 days.
It is clear that Ennahda is on the way to losing its
parliamentary majority in two cases. The first is that it has now been almost three
months since the first mandate by the president to Jemli in November 2019,
which means that the president could dissolve the entire parliament in about a
month.
The second case is that there is a new parliamentary front
that was formed on January 11, which comprises five out of the eight
parliamentary blocs.
The new bloc aims to present its own candidate to obtain
President Kais Saied’s confidence to form the new government within the next ten
days.
