Kais Saied, the Tunisian President has sacked Prime Minister Ahmed Hachani, appointing the now former Social Affairs Minister, Kamel Maddouri as his replacement. The Tunisian presidency had made this statement on Wednesday night.
Hachani was appointed Tunisia’s prime minister in August 2023. A few hours before he was dismissed, Hachani released a video message, saying that the government had made progress on a number of issues regardless of the global challenges it was facing, including securing the country’s food and energy needs.
Hachani’s dismissal is coming amid a wide discontent with the reoccurring water and electricity outage crisis in several parts of the country.
Although the government has said that Tunisia was suffering from a continuous drought that has led to a quota system in water distribution, Saied mostly sees the water cuts as a conspiracy ahead of the upcoming presidential election and has claimed that the dams are full.
Meanwhile, the agriculture ministry has disagreed with this, saying that the dam level has reached an exceedingly critical point of 25 percent.
The Tunisian President, Saied had previously announced his intention to run for the presidential elections coming up in October but this has been met with amid widespread criticism from the opposition, human rights groups and other candidates as they say he has been restricting and intimidating competitors to carve the way for him to win a second term in office.