1 Tunisia opts for an inclusive new government By Monica Marks May 5, 2017 The Washington Post, Monkey Cage New Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid presents his second government to the media Feb.2 in Tunis. (Hassene Dridi/AP) Tunisia made positive headlines again on Feb. 2 after its newly appointed prime minister, Habib Essid, announced an inclusive coalition government whose members include representatives of the Islamist Ennahda party. For many activists inside Nidaa Tunis, a party built on the back of anti-Islamist opposition that won legislative and presidential elections in the fall, the new cabinet came as a shock. On Feb. 2, Taieb Baccouche, secretary general of Nidaa Tunis and minister of foreign affairs in the newly announced cabinet, addressed Nidaa members protesting outside the party’s headquarters in Tunis’s Lac district, reassuring them that he, too, wished Ennahda would have stayed in the opposition. Abdelaziz Kotti, a Nidaa member of parliament, and other prominent party members have spoken out against the decision to involve Ennahda. Likewise Hamma Hammami, head of the leftist Popular Front, which has 15 seats in parliament, also announced his party would oppose the government, largely due to its inclusion of Islamists. The Popular Front, comprised of leftists and trade unionists, staunchly