TUNIS — Tunisia’s president appointed a new prime minister on Wednesday amid growing criticism of a series of steps he has taken over the past two months to concentrate power in his hands.
The president, Kais Saied, named Najla Bouden Romdhan, a director-general at the Ministry of Higher Education who runs a World Bank-financed program designed to support the modernization of the country’s higher education system. She is the first woman to hold the office. The appointment came more than two months after he suspended Parliament, fired the prime minister and took the reins of power himself in what opponents called a “coup.”
Mr. Saied promised in July to reinstate a prime minister, and the appointment technically fulfills that pledge while doing little to check his rapid accumulation of power. The new prime minister, a former geology professor at the National School for Engineering, appears to have little political experience, making her unlikely to pose much of threat to the president.
Mr. Saied is comfortably in charge of Tunisia, having given himself the power to rule by decree, unilaterally write legislation, propose changes to the political system and suspend parts of the Constitution. With Parliament frozen and the judiciary, military and security services under his control, he has arrested several political opponents and imposed travel bans and asset freezes on businesspeople and judges.