Nigeria Content Online

Tunisia’s new
coalition government hit trouble on Tuesday when four ministers quit
and an opposition party threatened to walk out, undermining efforts to
restore stability and end unrest on the streets.

Prime Minister
Mohamed Ghannouchi brought opposition leaders into the coalition on
Monday after president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia
following weeks of street protests. But key figures from the old guard
kept their jobs, angering opposition members of the coalition and
street protesters.

Police in Tunis
repeatedly used teargas in an attempt to break up a protest by several
hundred opposition party supporters and trade unionists who labelled
the new government a “sham”.

Several hundred people also protested against the new government in Monastir, south of Tunis.

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.

Abid al-Briki of
the Tunisian labour union UGTT said its three ministers would withdraw
from the government because it included members of Ben Ali’s RCD party.

“This is in response to the demands of people on the streets,” Briki said.

The ministers were
given junior positions in the 23-member cabinet, including Houssine
Dimassi, nominated for the training and employment portfolio, and two
ministers of state, Abdeljelil Bedoui and Anouar Ben Gueddour.

The opposition
Ettajdid party will pull out of the coalition if ministers from Ben
Ali’s RCD party do not give up party membership and return to the state
all properties they obtained through the RCD, state television said.

Ettajdid leader Ahmed Ibrahim was named minister of higher education.

Opposition Health Minister Mustafa Ben Jaafar also resigned over the presence of RCD members in the cabinet, his party said.

On the streets, protesters insisted that ministers who had served Ben Ali had no place in the government.

“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.

Reforms promised

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. The prime minister said the ministers of defence, interior,

finance and foreign affairs under Ben Ali would keep their jobs in the new government.

“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.

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.

Paris-based opposition leader Moncef Marzouki arrived at Tunis airport to be met by 200 cheering supporters.

“The revolution must continue,” Marzouki, who went into exile after being harassed by Ben Ali’s intelligence services, said.

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.

A Reuters
photographer in the Ariana suburb of Tunis said local people were
organising neighbourhood groups to clean up the damage left by several
days of lawlessness.

The government
says at least 78 people were killed in the unrest, and the cost in
damage and lost business was $2 billion. Ghannouchi promised to release
all political prisoners and to investigate those suspected of
corruption Those behind the killing of demonstrators would face justice.

An Egyptian man
set himself on fire in Cairo and another one tried to follow suit,
echoing an act of self-immolation in Tuni sia that triggered the mass
protests that ousted the president. Similar cases have been reported in
Algeria and Mauritania. The wave of protests has hit stock and currency
markets from Jordan to Morocco amid fears that the Tunisian unrest
would spread abroad.