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Tunisia’s Islamist Prime Minister Resigns
By CARLOTTA GALL
Ali Larayedh’s resignation was part of a carefully calibrated plan to
end months of gridlock and prepare for new elections in the birthplace
of the Arab Spring.
TUNIS
— Tunisia’s Islamist prime minister resigned Thursday, ending the
two-year-old rule of his party, which has dominated the political scene
since the popular uprising here that initiated the Arab Spring.
The
departing prime minister, Ali Larayedh of the Ennahda Party, handed
power to a caretaker government that will oversee elections later in the
year.
The
resignation of the Ennahda government is a setback for the Islamists
who wanted to lead the country into elections, but is part of a
carefully calibrated political agreement with opposition parties to
break months of deadlock. Members of the National Constituent Assembly
had been stalling proceedings and demanding the resignation of the
government since the assassination of a secular politician, Mohammad
Brahmi, last July. It was the second assassination in six months, and
opposition groups blamed Mr. Larayedh for what they called his laxity
toward Islamist extremist threats.
Under an agreement mediated by the main labor union, political parties settled on
an interim prime minister, Mehdi Jomaa, an independent figure who is
the current minister of industry, last month. That ended the impasse,
and the assembly has resumed work to complete outstanding business,
namely to ratify the constitution, nominate the electoral board and
prepare an electoral law.
Mr.
Larayedh handed his resignation to President Moncef Marzouki on
Thursday afternoon, hours after the assembly had voted in members of the
new independent election board. The interim prime minister, Mr. Jomaa,
was expected to present his cabinet on Friday. Mr. Larayedh told
journalists at the presidential palace that he would continue to manage
the country’s affairs until the new prime minister had formed his
government and the constitution had been ratified.
“A
while ago I promised to resign when the country was on a clear track,
when there was a modern constitution and an independent board of
elections, which we hope will be held soon, and a new government agreed
by consensus to prepare for the elections,” he said at a brief news
conference. “This was our goal in the national dialogue so that
Tunisians can find an exit that avoids internal conflict.”
Mr. Larayedh said he hoped Tunisia’s experience would serve as a model of democratic transition for others.
One
of Tunisia’s most prominent former political prisoners, Mr. Larayedh,
58, is a founding member of Ennahda, or Renaissance, the country’s main
Islamist movement. He was repeatedly imprisoned and tortured for his
political activism when Tunisia was ruled by a dictatorial president,
Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.
With
a degree in maritime engineering, Mr. Larayedh spent much of his adult
life underground in political activism, teaching in private schools to
earn a living. He was arrested in 1990 and served 14 consecutive years
in prison, many of them in solitary confinement.
After
the revolution that overthrew Mr. Ben Ali, Ennahda won national
elections in October 2011 and formed a coalition interim government. Mr.
Larayedh was appointed interior minister in December 2011 and became
prime minister in February 2013. He was criticized for failing to curb
violence committed by extremist Islamists, including an attack on the
American Embassy in September 2012 and the assassination of a prominent
leftist politician, Chokri Belaid, in February 2013.
He
is stepping down at a time of growing social unrest amid worsening
security and economic difficulties. Violent demonstrations have broken
out around the country to protest high unemployment and a new finance
law that has raised taxes on goods and transportation. Mr. Larayedh
announced that the government was abrogating that law hours before he
submitted his resignation.
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