TUNIS: Tunisia’s Islamist-inspired Ennahdha party which last month came top in legislative polls put forward its leader Rached Ghannouchi on Sunday to head the next parliament.
Ennahdha, which won 52 out of 217 seats in October’s parliamentary election — well short of the 109 needed to govern — also insisted that the new prime minister of Tunisia should be selected from the party.
Ghannouchi, a divisive figure and veteran leader of Ennahdha, was proposed as candidate for speaker of parliament by the party’s Shoura Council, according to council chief Abdelkarim Harouni.
Ghannouchi has led Ennahdha since it was founded almost 40 years ago, carrying the movement to victory in a 2011 election, just months after the party reemerged from underground following the revolution that ousted autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
He has never run for office but won a parliamentary seat in Tunis in the October 6 legislative polls.
Harouni on Sunday reiterated that Ennahdha wants one of its own figures to head the new government in the North African country.
The Islamist-inspired party has until Friday to announce its candidate for the premiership.
Ennahdha has been holding negotiations with other political groups to form a new government.
But Harouni said “certain parties want to deprive the winner of the legislative election” from heading the cabinet.
Tunisia’s new parliament is expected to hold its first full session on Wednesday.
The legislative polls were held between the first and second round of Tunisia’s presidential election which was won by political outsider Kais Saied, a conservative academic.
Tunisia’s Islamist-inspired party wants leader to be house speaker
Tunisia’s Islamist-inspired party wants leader to be house speaker
Lebanese finance minister denies any plans for a Kushner-run economic zone in the south
- Proposal was made by US Envoy Morgan Ortagus but was ‘killed on the spot’
- Priority is to regain control of state in all aspects, Yassine Jaber tells Arab News
DAVOS: Lebanon’s finance minister dismissed any plans of turning Lebanon’s battered southern region into an economic zone, telling Arab News on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos that the proposal had died “on the spot.”
Yassine Jaber explained that US Envoy to Lebanon Morgan Ortagus had proposed the idea for the region, which has faced daily airstrikes by Israel, and it was immediately dismissed.
Jaber’s comments, made to Arab News on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, were in response to reports which appeared in Lebanese media in December which suggested that parts of southern Lebanon would be turned into an economic zone, managed by a plan proposed by Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son in law.
Meanwhile, Jaber also dismissed information which had surfaced in Davos over the past two days of a bilateral meeting between Lebanese ministers, US Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff and Kushner.
Jaber said that the meeting on Tuesday was a gathering of “all Arab ministers of finance and foreign affairs, where they (Witkoff and Kushner) came in for a small while, and explained to the audience the idea about deciding the board of peace for Gaza.”
He stressed that it did not develop beyond that.
When asked about attracting investment and boosting the economy, Jaber said: “The reality now is that we need to reach the situation where there is stability that will allow the Lebanese army, so the (Israeli) aggression has to stop.”
Over the past few years, Lebanon has witnessed one catastrophe after another: one of the world’s worst economic meltdowns, the largest non-nuclear explosion in its capital’s port, a paralyzed parliament and a war with Israel.
A formal mechanism was put in place between Lebanon and Israel to maintain a ceasefire and the plan to disarm Hezbollah in areas below the Litani river.
But, the minister said, Israel’s next step is not always so predictable.
“They’re actually putting pressure on the whole region. So, a lot of effort is being put on that issue,” he added.
“There are still attacks in the south of the country also, so stability is a top necessity that will really succeed in pushing the economy forward and making the reforms beneficial,” he said.
Lawmakers had also enacted reforms to overhaul the banking sector, curb the cash economy and abolish bank secrecy, alongside a bank resolution framework.
Jaber also stressed that the government had recently passed a “gap law” intended to help depositors recover funds and restore the banking system’s functionality.
“One of the priorities we have is really to deal with all the losses of the war, basically reconstruction … and we have started to get loans for reconstructing the destroyed infrastructure in the attacked areas.”
As Hezbollah was battered during the war, Lebanon had a political breakthrough as the army’s general, Joseph Aoun, was inaugurated as president. His chosen prime minister was the former president of the International Court of Justice, Nawaf Salam.
This year marks the first time a solid delegation from the country makes its way to Davos, with Salam being joined by Jaber, Economy and Trade Minister Amr Bisat, and Telecoms Minister Charles Al-Hage.
“Our priority is to really regain the role of the state in all aspects, and specifically in rebuilding the institutions,” Jaber said.
