New earthquake in Tunisia: Jemli’s gov’t fails and Ennahda loses its parliamentary majority

Mohammed Abdul Ghaffar

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.