Tunisian govt resists proposal to step down

TUNIS: Tunisia’s ruling coalition on Monday rejected a plan under which it 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 Ennahda-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 Ennahda party called on Monday 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, said.
Since former autocrat Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali fell in 2011, Tunisia has faced growing divisions over the political role of Islam, with the opposition accusing Ennahda of promoting an agenda in one of the Arab world’s most secular nations