Tunisian PM Fires Foreign, Defense Ministers

Prime Minister Youssef Chahed of Tunisia, who fired Tunisia’s foreign and defense ministers on October 29, meets with former U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis at the Pentagon. (Flickr)

Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed fired Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui and Defense Minister Abdelkarim Zbidi on October 29. Newly elected President Kaies Saied approved the replacement of both ministers, as required by Tunisia’s constitution.

Chahed reportedly consulted with Saied before the dismissals took place. While Tunisia’s president has control over foreign and defense policy, the ruling coalition in the Tunisian parliament controls the rest of the government. Both the president and prime minister were involved in the firings. Ministers in Tunisia are appointed rather than elected, and do not set policy.

Karim Jamoussi, Tunisia’s justice minister, will step in as acting defense minister, and Sabri Bachtobji will be acting foreign minister. 

Jhinaoui and Zbidi came to power with former-President Beji Caid Essebsi, who died in July. Saied opposes many of Essebsi’s policy views, including a proposed law that would allow men and women to inherit equally. His firing of the two top officials marks a major change from the previous regime.

Meanwhile, Chahed has much to gain from allying with Saied, who was elected in a landslide as an independent several weeks ago. Saied enjoys support from a wide range of political parties, and the prime minister needs to form a majority coalition in parliament in the next two months to maintain his position.

The Tunisian parliamentary elections left no party with a clear path to a majority, with the biggest winner, the Ennahda Party, controlling just 52 of 217 seats. Although Saied was elected without a party affiliation, Ennahda was among the first to endorse his candidacy.

To complicate matters for Chahed, the two largest parties in parliament, Ennahda and the new Heart of Tunisia party, have both promised not to form a coalition with the other. Meanwhile, previously powerful political parties like Call of Tunisia, performed poorly in the recent elections. If neither Chahed nor the next prime minister can form a ruling coalition, another round of elections will be held.

Saied’s political platform is varied: while he has voiced support for conservative religious policies such as criminalizing homosexuality, he also pledged support to Tunisia’s education system to “immunize” youths against extremism, and campaigned principally on fighting corruption. These diverse positions have gained him support from a wide range of political parties. 

While Ennahda hopes to unite political parties around Saied’s anti-corruption focus, senior Ennahda official Yamina Zoglami recognized that forming a coalition will be “very difficult and complicated.” Chahed’s firing of the ministers could mark a first step in building a coalition around Saied’s popular platform.