Tunisia’s ruling Islamists yesterday rejected a proposal under which they would step down pending elections, a decision likely to deepen confrontation with secular opponents demanding their immediate resignation.
Tunisia, whose 2011 uprising was the first of a series across the Arab world, has been in turmoil since an opposition leader was assassinated in July, threatening a democratic transition once seen as the most promising in a troubled region.
The country’s powerful UGTT union had been pushing both sides to accept a plan for the Islamist-led government to step down after three weeks of talks to decide on a date for elections and the composition of a new caretaker administration.
But the moderate Islamist Ennahda party yesterday called for more guarantees on the election date and said an assembly writing a new constitution should finish its work before the government agreed to relinquish power.
“We have said that this government would not step down concretely before the completion of the constitution,” Rafik Abd Essalem, a senior Ennahda official, told reporters.
Frustrated at lack of progress, the 800,000-member UGTT labour union on Sunday threatened to mobilise protests to pressure the government to accept the proposal that it should step down to make way for a transition cabinet.
“We cannot accept the threat of pressure from the streets,” said Ennahda vice president Adb el Hamid Jelassi.
“There should be more guarantees.”