Tunisia’s Ruling Islamists Accept Plan to Step Down
Tunisia’s Islamist-led government on Saturday agreed to resign after negotiations that could start next week with secular opponents to form a caretaker administration and prepare for new elections.
The talks aim to end weeks of crisis involving the Islamist-led coalition government and secular opposition parties that threatened to derail the transition to democracy in the North African country where the Arab Spring uprisings began in 2011.
Tunisia’s powerful UGTT labor union, mediating between the two sides, proposed the ruling Islamist Ennahda party agree to three weeks of negotiations, after which it would step down and make way for an independent transitional administration and set a date for parliamentary and presidential elections.
“The dialogue will start on Monday or Tuesday,” Lotfi Zitoun, an Ennahda party official, said. “Ennahda has accepted the plan without conditions to get the country out of the political crisis.”
The UGTT confirmed the agreement and called on both sides to set a time to begin talks next week.