Tunisia president says alliance with moderate Islamists over

Tunisia's conservative president says he has ended his alliance with the moderate Islamist party Ennahdha and that the next parliamentary elections will take place in Dec. 2019.

President Caid Beji Essebsi, 91, said during a Monday night TV interview that the consensus reached in 2015 with Ennahdha, the largest party in parliament, had ensured "relative stability" but that the alliance has come to an end — at the initiative of Ennahdha.

Ennahdha backs Prime Minister Youssef Chahed, while numerous parties, including the president's, want him to step down over policy differences.

Ennahdha had, according to the president, "chosen another path".

Tunisia has gone through a rocky transition to a democratic system since its 2011 revolution that triggered the "Arab spring".

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