Tunisian President Kais Saied has dismissed Prime Minister Kamel Madouri on Friday, less than eight months after his appointment, the presidency announced.
He was replaced by Minister of Public Works Sarra Zaafrani Zenzri, who became the second woman to hold this position in the country’s history.
Madouri, a senior civil servant appointed in August 2024 during a major government reshuffle, was tasked with reviving Tunisia’s crisis-hit economy. But his performance was deemed insufficient by the presidency, amid persistent economic tensions: still-high inflation (7 percent in 2024), shortages of basic goods, low growth (0.4 percent), public debt close to 80 percent of GDP, and unemployment at 16 percent.
“It is necessary to better coordinate the government’s actions and remove the obstacles that prevent it from meeting the people’s expectations,” President Saied said during a meeting with Ms.
Zaafrani, broadcast on the presidential office’s social media channels.
The rest of the government remains in office, according to an official statement.
A 62-year-old civil engineer and multilingual speaker, Sarra Zaafrani Zenzri has headed the Ministry of Public Works since 2021.
She succeeds Najla Bouden, Tunisia’s first female prime minister from 2021 to 2023.
This change comes amid a tense political climate. For several months, opposition figures, lawyers, activists, and businessmen have been arrested. Local and international NGOs have denounced an authoritarian drift since Kais Saied’s suspension of Parliament in 2021, followed by a constitutional revision establishing a strengthened presidential regime.
Re-elected in October 2024 with over 90 percent of the vote in an election marked by low turnout, President Saïed also broke off talks with the International Monetary Fund, which had offered a $2 billion loan in exchange for significant reforms, particularly regarding subsidies.
The country remains supported by Algeria, which supplies it with hydrocarbons at preferential prices.
The new head of government will have to navigate this unstable economic and political context, while Tunisia faces an increasingly fragile social situation.
MK/ac/Sf/fss/as/APA