Finance Minister Michket Slama Khaldi told the finance committee of the Assembly of the Representatives of the People on July 20 that Tunisia had repaid in mid-July the 2026 instalment of what she called the country's largest external loan, worth 740 million euros, conceding that the payment drew directly on foreign-currency reserves. The hearing was convened to examine bill 52-2026, approving an amendment to the central bank's credit agreement with the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank): a 500-million-dollar facility on which she said negotiators had brought the rate down to 5.86 percent from market levels above 9 percent for Tunisian risk. With no IMF programme in place, the government is covering the second half of the budget year through regional lenders, earmarking the money for fuel and medicine imports and for stalled public projects.
The electoral commission ISIE announced on July 20 that Chaker Bouthouri had taken the El Kabaria seat in the Tunis governorate in Sunday's run-off with 1,225 votes (50.14 percent) against 1,218 (49.86 percent) for Mohamed Salah Selmi, a margin of seven ballots out of 2,443 cast. In the first round in late June the top two were six votes apart, and about 3,000 of the district's more than 60,000 registered voters turned out: a participation rate of roughly 4 percent on ISIE's own figures. When individual seats in the chamber elected under Kaïs Saïed's rewritten electoral law are settled by a handful of voters, it is the clearest available measure of how far Tunisians have disengaged from the institution.
Telvza TV said on July 20 that it was suspending its broadcasts until further notice. In a Facebook post, director-general Zouhir Latif accused the Office national de la télédiffusion (ONT): the state body that carries private channels: of a policy of "permanent harassment" and "blackmail", and said the presidency, the prime minister's office, the finance ministry, the communication technologies ministry and parliament had all failed to answer the channel or mediate. Neither the ONT nor the institutions named had responded publicly, and the channel did not say on what terms it would resume. The episode shows how a state-owned distribution monopoly gives the authorities leverage over what is left of Tunisia's private media.