Tunisian parties formalize power-sharing deal, defense and finance ministers to keep their jobs

Tunisia’s three main parties formalized a power-sharing agreement on Monday, 10 months after the ouster of the north African country’s strongman Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.

Hamadi Jebali of the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, which took the most votes in elections last month, will serve as prime minister, the other top jobs of president and chairman of the new constituent assembly are divided between two left-wing parties.

Moncef Marzouki of the leftist Congress for the Republic Party (CPR) will be president, and Ettakatol’s Mustapha Ben Jaafar will chair the body tasked with drafting a new constitution.

The 217-member assembly will meet for the first time on Tuesday to confirm the three posts, political sources said.

The chamber’s freshly elected members are also due to adopt a set of internal rules based on a document drafted by the now-dissolved body in charge of political reform after Ben Ali’s ouster.

The assembly is dominated by Ennahda, a party inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood, with 89 seats while the CPR and the Ettakatol party control 29 and 20 seats respectively.

Sources said ministerial posts were also assigned, pending approval by the assembly.

The Islamist-led ruling coalition will keep the country's ministers of defense and finance and the central bank governor in their posts when it announces a new government, a senior coalition source told Reuters on Monday.

The Ennahda source said apart from those posts “there will be a lot of changes (in the government line-up). It will be announced later today.”

Tunisia became the birth-place of the “Arab Spring” uprisings earlier this year after vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself in an act of protest that swelled into a revolution and ousted the president.

Ennahda’s victory was the first time Islamists won power in the Arab world since the Hamas faction won an election in the Palestinian Territories in 2006.

Tunisia’s sometimes bumpy transition to democracy is being watched closely by Egypt and Libya, where “Arab Spring” revolts pushed out entrenched leaders and where once-outlawed Islamists are also challenging for power.