TUNIS, Tunisia, July 31 (UPI) — After just 18 months as Tunisia’s prime minister, the country’s parliament ousted Habib Essid with a vote of no confidence.
Those who voted against Essid said he failed to tackle both security and economic issues the country is facing, Al Jazeera reported.
Only three members of parliament voted to keep Essie as prime minister, while 118 voted late Saturday to oust him and 27 abstained.
Last month, Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi called for a national unity government to address the economic turbulence that country is facing, BBC reported.
More than one-third of Tunisia’s young people are out of work and unemloyment has gotten worse since a 2011 revolution during which President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was unseated.
Tunisia’s revolution was the first of the Arab Spring and considered by many to be the most successful, since the country is now run as a parliamentary democracy.
This is the first time Tunisian government has taken this sort of action, said political analyst Youssef Cherif. “This is the first time in Tunisia that such an event happened; first time a government goes to parliament and a vote of no confidence is recorded.
“This will open the doors again for days, weeks, even months of negotiations between different political parties and different political players … [putting] all the big projects that were supposed to take place on standby until a new government is formed and voted in,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said, that standby mode won’t be good for the country’s political and economic situation.
