PANAPRESS
Panafrican News Agency
Tunisia: Prime Minister Essid names new Tunisian cabinet
Tunis, Tunisia (PANA) – Tunisia's newly-appointed Prime Minister Habib Essid on Friday named his cabinet, nearly three months after parliamentary elections in which the secular 'Nida Tounes' (Tunisia’s appeal) party was the overall winner.
The “first government of the Second Republic”, which includes 24 ministers and 14 Secretaries of State has nine women, a record compared to governments formed since the country’s independence in 1956.
A number of the appointed ministers will appear in the government for the first time and not many of them are known to the public.
Nida Tounes party got a dozen portfolios, including Foreign Affairs for Taieb Baccouche. Other ministries such as Justice, Interior and Defence have been assigned to nonpartisan personalities.
Free Patriotic Union (UPL), led by billionaire Slim Riahi and third party with 16 seats in Parliament, got three ministers.
Combined, Nida Tounes and UPL have 102 seats out of the 217 total seats of Parliament.
Presented as a "government of national competences and political personalities," the cabinet line-up was submitted to President Béji Caïd Essebsi before it was announced to the press.
"It is the government of all Tunisians. It will work to attain the goals of the revolution which are liberty and dignity, and will try hard to take up the challenges facing the country, particularly in terms of economic development,” said Essid.
-0- PANA BB/IS/MSA/AR 23Jan2015
The “first government of the Second Republic”, which includes 24 ministers and 14 Secretaries of State has nine women, a record compared to governments formed since the country’s independence in 1956.
A number of the appointed ministers will appear in the government for the first time and not many of them are known to the public.
Nida Tounes party got a dozen portfolios, including Foreign Affairs for Taieb Baccouche. Other ministries such as Justice, Interior and Defence have been assigned to nonpartisan personalities.
Free Patriotic Union (UPL), led by billionaire Slim Riahi and third party with 16 seats in Parliament, got three ministers.
Combined, Nida Tounes and UPL have 102 seats out of the 217 total seats of Parliament.
Presented as a "government of national competences and political personalities," the cabinet line-up was submitted to President Béji Caïd Essebsi before it was announced to the press.
"It is the government of all Tunisians. It will work to attain the goals of the revolution which are liberty and dignity, and will try hard to take up the challenges facing the country, particularly in terms of economic development,” said Essid.
-0- PANA BB/IS/MSA/AR 23Jan2015
