S&P confirms Tunisia's rating as BBB- after elections

Standard and Poor's (S&P) said Tuesday that Tunisia's rating will remain BBB- with negative outlook after recent elections, Tunisian official press agency TAP reported. The rating agency said the results of the Tunisian constituent assembly elections had no positive impact on the country's rating. The formation of a new government in the North African country is not a factor that will influence the rating, the agency said, noting that it is focusing on the reforms through which the government would put the economy back to the track. S&P, which had downgraded Tunisia's rating in March, two months after the country's political turmoil, further lowered its debt outlook from "stable" to "negative" in July. Tunisia's economic growth dropped from 5 percent to 1.5 percent during the months after the political turmoil, in which President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted. The country's main Islamist party, Ennahdha, won the elections on Oct. 23 for National Constituent Assembly, which is tasked with drafting a new constitution for the country and forming a new government to run the country for a 12-month period.