Tunisia's leaders meet to discuss cabinet reshuffle

Leaders of Tunisia's ruling coalition held a major meeting on Saturday night to settle their differences over the expected cabinet reshuffle, cabinet sources said to Arabstoday. President Moncif Marzouki [The Congress for the Republic Party], Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali [Ennahda Party], Ennahda's chairman Rached Ghannouchi, President of the Constituent Assembly Mustapha Ben Jaafar [chairman of the Democratic Forum for Labour and Liberties] and secretary general of the Congress for the Republic, all attended the meeting. The conference took place at the Carthage presidential palace in Tunis, in what seemed as a final attempt to save the ruling coalition - formed of the three parties represented in the meeting - amid collapse threats due to disputes over the planned cabinet reshuffle, particularly regarding the "sovereign ministries" Justice, Interior and Foreign ministry. The meeting also came at the same time as officials of the Congress and the Democratic Forum are holding internal meetings to decide on whether they will continue to ally with the Islamist party, Ennahda, or they withdraw from the shaky coalition. It is expected that the Congress for the Republic will issue a statement in the coming few hours to announce their final stance on keeping their position within the troika government. It was reported that both the Congress and the Democratic Forum have asked to appoint "independent" or non-partisan ministers on top of the three sovereign ministries, but their demand was turned down by Ennahda, who insisted to keep the three posts in their hands. Spokesperson of the Congress for the Republic, Samir Ben Omar earlier said that his party's decision will be highly affected by Ennahda's final answer over the sovereign ministries issue. Meanwhile, Mohammed Balnour, spokesperson of the Democratic Forum said that the prospect of seeing his party leaving the ruling coalition "is not ruled out." For his part, head of Ennahda's politburo Ali Laerid underlined his party's keenness on maintaining the current elements of the ruling coalition. Yet he criticised the Congress and the Democratic Forum for putting "exaggerated preconditions" to stay in the troika government. Tunisia has been recently going through a state of political and security unrest, mainly due to rising frustration about the work of the interim government led by Ennahda.