Tunisian police used teargas on Tuesday to break up a protest against a new coalition government that includes allies of ousted leader Zine bin Abidine Ben Ali. Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi brought opposition leaders into a coalition on Monday after the president fled to Saudi Arabia following weeks of violent street protests. But key ‘old guard’ figures kept their jobs, angering many.
Tunisian state television denied Arabic satellite news reports that said opposition parties had quit the coalition. In central Tunis, several hundred opposition party supporters and trade unionists protested peacefully before their demonstration was broken up by police. “The new government is a sham. It’s an insult to the revolution that claimed lives and blood,” said student Ahmed al-Haji. “The problem with the interim government is it has a number of ministers from the old government,” protester Sami bin Hassan said.
Ghannouchi defended his government, saying some ministers had been kept on because they were needed in the run-up to elections, expected in the next two months. “We have tried to put together a mix that takes into account the different forces in the country to create the conditions to be able to start reforms,” Ghannouchi told Europe 1 radio. Ghannouchi rejected suggestions that the Ben Ali “dictatorship” would continue under a new guise. “That is completely unfair. Today there is an era of liberty which is showing itself on the television, on the street,” he said.
His foreign minister, Kamel Morjane, said during a visit to Egypt that the interim government would respond to issues that had angered protesters, such as corruption, and would be preparing for new elections. “It may be possible that the next government will not have any member of the former government,” he said. The weeks of protests against poverty and unemployment in Tunisia which forced Ben Ali from office prompted fears across the Arab world that similarly repressive governments might also face popular unrest.
In Tunis on Tuesday, people in several parts of the city reported hearing sporadic gunfire overnight but there was significantly less gunfire than on previous nights.
CAFE TABLES
On Bourguiba Avenue, the tree-lined main street in the capital, kerb-side cafes were putting out their tables for the first time since last week, and shops were re-opening. The avenue had been the scene of protests against the government and there was a police and military presence. A Reuters photographer in the Ariana suburb of Tunis said local people were organizing neighborhood groups to clean up the damage left by several days of lawlessness.
Interior Minister Ahmed Friaa told state television on Monday that at least 78 people had been killed in the unrest, and the cost so far in damage and lost business was 3 billion dinars ($2 billion). Ghannouchi promised to release all political prisoners and to investigate those suspected of corruption, and those behind the killing of demonstrators would face justice. “All those who are behind this massacre, this carnage, will be accountable to the justice system.”
The wave of protests has hit stock and currency markets from Jordan to Morocco amid fears that the Tunisian unrest would spread abroad. The prime minister said the ministers of defense, interior, finance and foreign affairs under Ben Ali would keep their jobs in the new government. Among opposition figures, Najib Chebbi, founder of the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), was named minister of regional development, Ettajdid party leader Ahmed Ibrahim higher education minister and Mustafa Ben Jaafar, head of the Union of Freedom and Labour, health minister.
In Algeria, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika told three governors whose provinces have borders with Tunisia to offer hospitality and support to Tunisians if they request it, a government source told Reuters.
