Tunisia’s Foreign Minister Ousted, By Stanley Ugagbe

The President of Tunisia, Kais Saied has sacked Foreign Minister Othman Jerandi, a development that makes him the fourth minister to lose his post since the beginning of the year in a tense political context in the country.

The development was announced by the Presidency on its official website. In the announcement, Jerandi, who has been in office since September 2020, was replaced by Nabil Ammar, Ambassador of Tunisia to the European Union.

However, the Presidency did not give any details on the reasons for this decision which concerns for the first time a sovereign ministry.

Official records have it that since the beginning of January, President Saied has already dismissed three ministers: the Minister of Trade as well as the Ministers of Agriculture and Education.

Meanwhile, these drastic decisions come as Tunisia has been plagued by deep divisions since the coup by President Saied who assumed all powers in July 2021, before revising the Constitution a year later to return to an ultra- presidential-ist similar to that before the 2011 Revolution and the fall of Dictator Ben Ali.

Reports have it that in addition to these political tensions, Tunisia is also shaken by a financial crisis because of a debt bordering on 80% of the GDP, at the origin, according to experts, of recurrent shortages of basic products for lack of sufficient supplies.

In a bid to fuel its economy, the nation has been negotiating for months an agreement for a new loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of 1.9 billion euros in return for reforms.

It was also reported that the talks which had led to an agreement in principle from the IMF in mid-October came up against, according to experts, the reluctance of the Tunisian president to lift state subsidies on certain basic products.