Tunis, March 02: Tunisia’s minister for economic and social reform became the third minister in the space of a day to quit the country’s interim government.
The departure of Elyes Jouini today followed those of Ahmed Ibrahim, head of the Ettajdid party, who had served as an education minister, and local development minister Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, from the Progressive Democratic Party, the official TAP news agency reports.
It brought to five the number of ministers to stand down over the past 48 hours.
Yesterday industry and technology minister Mohamed Afif Chelbi and planning and international cooperation minister Mohamed Nouri Jouini, both of whom had served under the regime of authoritarian president Zinr El Abidine Ben Ali, left their posts.
The interim government’s prime minister Mohammed Ghannouchi, who held the same post under Ben Ali, quit on Monday after clashes at weekend demonstrations left five people dead.
“I am not ready to be the person who takes decisions that would end up causing casualties,” Mr Ghannouchi said.
He was swiftly replaced as prime minister by 84-year-old Beji Caid Essebsi, who had served under Habib Bourguiba who was president from 1957 to 1987.
Ahmed Ibrahim said he quit believing he “could better serve the revolution by being outside of the government”.
“The Ettajdid movement will have full freedom to act to contribute to the democratic transition,” he said.
Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, announced his departure at a news conference criticising the “hesitation and fuzziness” of the interim authority.
The government included several figures from Ben Ali’s regime and, even though it announced unprecedented freedoms and opened the way for the unbanning of certain groups and for exiles to return, protests continued to demand they also leave.
Opposition groups including parties, the UGTT union and civil society– coalescing into a Council for the Protection of the Revolution – continued to press demands including for the establishment of a constituent assembly.
Announcing his resignation, Mr Chebbi said the new prime minister had indicated to him that the caretaker government did plan to form the assembly, which would be tasked with drawing up a new constitution.
“Mr Caid Essebsi told me that the government has decided to fold itself into the Council for the Protection of the Revolution. There will be not be a presidential election but one for a constituent assembly,” he said.
The council also wants the entire government and the two chambers of parliament to be dissolved ahead of elections to form a new government.
Mr Chebbi also alleged there were elements in the system who were “clearing the way for a failure of the revolution, which has been peaceful until now, to allow a military coup”.
In another post-Ben Ali adjustment, the Islamist movement Ennahda (Awakening) announced that it had finally been granted legal status, 30 years after it was formed and following its banning and persecution by the previous regime.
“We are entering in a new phase of national action … to contribute to the building of a democratic regime,” spokesman Ali El-Aryadh said after Ennahda had received notification that it had been legalised.
Thousands of Islamist activists and sympathisers were arrested in the 1990s and many went into exile as Ben Ali’s authoritarian government presented itself as a bulwark against fanaticism.
Amnesty International meanwhile called on the new interim government to investigate the security forces involved in a brutal crackdown on the protests against Ben Ali, which the United Nations said killed more than 200 people.
“These are murders that must be the object of a full, transparent and impartial investigation,” its Denys Robiliard said, presenting a report detailing killings and acts of brutality by security forces in the revolt.
——–Agencies