Saturday, November 19, 2011

Power sharing agreement in Tunisia


Marzouki

Jbeli



Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda party and its two coalition partners have reached agreement in principle to share out the top three government posts between them, senior sources from two coalition parties told Reuters on Friday.
Under the deal, the most powerful post, of prime minister, will go to Hamadi Jbeli, secretary-general of the Islamist Ennahda party which won last month's election, said the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Moncef Marzouki, leader of the secularist Congress for the Republic, a junior coalition partner, is to be named Tunisian president, and Mustafa Ben Jaafar, leader of third coalition partner Ettakatol, will be speaker of the constitutional assembly, the sources said.
 The three parties have "an agreement in principle but it is not official yet," said one of the sources. The other source said an announcement would be made in the next few days.

Ben Jaafar
Last month's election was for an assembly which will sit for a year to draft a new constitution.
Once that is done, it will be dissolved and new elections will be called for a legislature and possibly a president, depending on what new system of government the assembly chooses.
There is no formal role for Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi. Some observers say he may have his eye on the president's job when new elections come around.

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