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Head of Salvation Front: ‘Tunisia needs a rescue government, national dialogue without president’

August 5, 2023 at 11:58 am

Tunisian opposition leader Ahmed Najib Chebbi in Tunis, Tunisia. [Yassine Gaidi/Anadolu Agency]

Ahmed Najib Chebbi, head of the National Salvation Front (the largest opposition bloc), urged that Tunisia needs a national rescue government resulting from a national dialogue: “In which President Kais Saied does not participate, as he rejected previous dialogue initiatives led by the Labour Union with a number of other organisations that received the Nobel Peace Prize.”

In a press conference on Friday in the capital, he added: “Tunisia is in a state of disintegration and needs a rescue government in which the various political forces participate and has political support so that it is not isolated, but can rather save the country from the crises it is going through.”

Chebbi also criticised the new Prime Minister Ahmed Al-Hachani, describing him as: “A little-known figure in political circles.”

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On Tuesday evening, President Saied decided to end the duties of Prime Minister Najla Bouden and appoint Al-Hachani as her successor.

The decision was widely rejected by most political forces in the country, as some considered it a “step forward to escape” by President Saied due to his “failure” in running the state, given that he monopolises all powers in the country.

Others questioned the competence of the new prime minister due to his lack of experience in the political or economic fields besides his work as director of legal affairs at the Central Bank.

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