Tunisian Prime Minister-designate Hichem Mechichi’s cabinet and his technocratic government won a confidence vote early on Wednesday as the North African country faces a deep economic crisis worsened by the coronavirus pandemic, reported CGTN Africa. The new government required 109 of the 217-member body to vote in favor.
A total of 134 deputies voted in favor and 67 against forming the government in voting held in parliament which lasted more than 14 hours. Mr. Mechichi’s government will be the third government to oversee Tunisia since the legislative elections in October last year and the ninth since the revolution that brought down the country’s autocratic regime in 2011 and triggered Arab Spring uprisings across the region.
Before the confidence vote on Tuesday morning, Mr. Mechichi told parliament that the new government will be “a government of action, achievement, efficiency and change that will seek innovative solutions.”
He added that his new Tunisian government would work to end the “haemorrhaging” of public finances, preserve the achievements of the public sector, and boost investments and purchasing power.
“The dream of a new Tunisia which assures freedom, dignity and equity has transformed into disillusion, deception and hopelessness, pushing some Tunisians to board boats of death,” Mechichi said.
In July, President Kais Saied assigned Mechichi, who was the interior minister at the time, to form a new government. President Saied appointed him as premier after Elyes Fakhfakh resigned from the post over allegations of a conflict of interest.
Last month, Mechichi formed a technocratic government with 25 ministers and three state clerks. His cabinet is made up of independent national powers, including general managers, experts and academics as well as senior executives from the administration and the private sector.
Mechichi, who is not affiliated with any political party, was not nominated by any party for the post of prime minister. His cabinet is expected to take an oath in front of the Tunisian President sometime this week.
