By Hadi Fornaji.
Tunis, 12 October 2017:
Abdullah Al-Thinni, the head of the interim government based in Beida, has acquired yet another acting interior minister. He has appointed retired Colonel Younis Mohamed Belgassem Ismail to the post, replacing Brigadier Hussein Abdullah Elabbar.
It is Thinni’s eighth appointment to the post in the past three years, although the new minister is merely the seventh man to hold the job: Elabbar held it twice. He was first appointed in November last year but then resigned after a week, but was then again appointed at the end of April this year.
It was predicted at the time of his second appointment that he would not last long in the job because of the combination of the massive expectations of anyone in the job and the great difficulties of delivering on them. In the event, he lasted five and a half months.
The new incumbent has still to be approved by the House of Representatives.
In another development, Thinni has reappointed Hatem Al-Oreibi as his official spokesman. Oreibi quit the job exactly a year ago saying that he could not do it and that of the head of the Beida’s government’s Radio and TV Corporation at the same time.
Apparently he now feels able to combine the two positions. He is Thinni’s fifth appointment to the post.
