Last week, a new government was announced by the Prime-Minister designate in Tunisia, Hichem Mechichi, but that was not all he required to do. To get started with his work as Prime Minister, he needed to win the approval of the country parliament for the cabinet members he nominated to be approved. Mechichi won the heart of parliament on Tuesday, the 2nd of September after a total of 134 deputies voted in favour of forming the cabinet, which includes 25 ministers and 3 secretaries of state.

Addressing cabinet members and lawmakers, Mechichi hinted what will be the top priority for his government: improving Tunisia’s economy, investing in impoverished regions, supporting institutions affected by the coronavirus pandemic and curbing tax evasion. Tunisia’s economy, which is largely dependent on tourism, contracted by 21.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2020, and unemployment rose to 18 per cent compared with the same period last year, due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Mechichi called on the new Cabinet to get to work immediately in order to stabilise the country. “Ten years after the revolution, the dream of a new Tunisia that assures liberty, dignity and equity has transformed into disillusion, disappointment and despair, which has pushed a large number of Tunisians to take boats of death,” he said referring to the trips Tunisian citizens embark on, across the Mediterranean Sea to find better opportunities in Europe. If the new administration is able to follow through with the reforms, it will be avoiding the social and economic crisis that has been looming in Tunisia, even prior to the outbreak of COVID-19. 

This cabinet, which consists mostly general managers, experts and academics as well as senior executives from the administration and the private sector, is Tunisia’s third cabinet in one year and the ninth in almost a decade. 

The new cabinet is primed to take an oath in front of President Kais Saied this week.