Hamadi Jebali, of the Islamist an-Nahda party, will be Tunisia’s next prime minister, under a deal struck between the country’s three main parties, a senior politician said on Friday.
Abdelwaheb Matar, a senior official in the Congress for the Republic party, said the parties had also agreed that his grouping’s veteran rights activist and opposition politician Moncef Marzouki would become Tunisia’s president.
Tunisians last month held historic democratic elections nine months after the January ouster of former Tunisian strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. They were the first polls staged as a result of the Arab Spring uprisings.
Tunisians were voting for a 217-strong constituent assembly to draw up a new constitution and appoint the caretaker government until the country calls a general election.
An-Nahda won the most seats, with 89.
It put forward Jebali for prime minister as it went into talks with the leftist Congress for the Republic, which won 29 seats, and Ettakatol, which won 20, over who should occupy the senior political posts.
The three parties also agreed that Mustapha Ben Jaafar of Ettakatol would occupy the third key post, president of the constituent assembly, Matar said.
However, the deal is subject to the approval of the assembly itself, which holds its first meeting on Tuesday, he added.
The deal was also confirmed by a leading figure inside Ettakatol, who cautioned that the discussions about the prerogatives of the future leaders had not ended.
He said an official announcement on the nominations would be made “by Monday” as talks would continue over the weekend about sharing out portfolios in the government.
The first task of the constituent assembly is to draw up a new constitution for the country after the ouster of Ben Ali by a popular uprising on Jan. 14. The new executive will run Tunisia until general elections are called.
Jebali, 63, spent more than 15 years in Ben Ali’s jails. His candidacy for the post of prime minister was announced by an-Nahda a few days after the Oct. 23 elections.
An-Nahda, which vowed to pursue moderate policies after it won the elections, has provoked concern about its radical roots by evoking the caliphate and criticizing single mothers. On Sunday last week, Jebali, the party’s No. 2 official, alarmed some by bringing up “the caliphate,” an Islamic system of government based on Shariah law. Marzouki, another former opponent of the regime, is a 66-year-old doctor who spent 10 years living in exile in France before returning to Tunisia after the revolution. His party describes itself as being nationalist left.
Ben Jaafar, another doctor, aged 71, heads the leftist Ettakatol (Forum) party.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the