Tunisia’s President Fires Prime Ninister

Tunisia’s autocratic president kais Saied has sacked Prime Minister Najla Bouden.

Ms Bouden – the country’s first ever female prime minister – was hand-picked by president Saied to lead the government after he removed her predecessor two years ago and took control of almost all state powers.

Her late-night dismissal was followed by the immediate swearing-in of another political unknown, Ahmed Hachani, who previously worked at the Tunisian Central Bank.

The move comes during a deepening economic and social crisis that has seen a shortage of many key commodities.

Ms Bouden’s government had supported an economic reform programme geared towards securing a $2bn IMF bailout.

Kais Saied “terminated the functions” of Prime Minister Najla Bouden, who had been the first woman to lead a government in Tunisia, according to a press release and a video from the Tunisian presidency released Tuesday shortly before midnight.

The new head of government was an executive at the Central Bank, and studied at the Faculty of Law of the University of Tunis where Kais Saied taught constitutional law, said the person concerned on Facebook.

Mr. Hachani, completely unknown to the general public, was immediately sworn in before President Saied, according to the video from the presidency.

At the end of the ceremony, Mr. Saied wished him “good luck in this responsibility” taken “in a specific situation”. The president stressed that “there are colossal challenges that we must overcome with a solid and strong will, in order to protect our homeland, our state and social peace”.

In recent days, several meetings have taken place within the government and between the president and ministers around problems of shortages of subsidized bread in several regions. According to media, Mr. Saied, who recently said that “bread is a red line for Tunisians”, fears a repeat of the bread riots which left 150 dead in 1984 under Habib Bourguiba.

In Tunisia, since the 1970s faced with a low-wage economy, the State centralizes the purchase of a large number of basic products (flour, sugar, semolina, coffee, cooking oil) before reinjecting them into the market at affordable prices.