SPORADIC GUNFIRE could be heard in central Tunis last night, just hours after a new unity government was formed which included opposition leaders excluded during President Zine al Abedine Ben Ali’s 23 years in power.
In a further gesture towards the protest movement that resulted in Ben Ali being deposed, prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi said the government was committed to releasing all political prisoners and would investigate anyone suspected of corruption or having great wealth. The information ministry – the nerve centre of propaganda under Ben Ali’s regime – is to be abolished.
The announcement was preceded by protests in the capital, Tunis, where hundreds gathered to demand Ben Ali’s RCD party be excluded from the new coalition. Security forces used water cannon and tear gas and fired shots in the air to disperse the protest.
The RCD will retain a strong presence at the cabinet table, with the strategically important posts of interior, defence and foreign affairs still under its control.
Mr Ghannouchi himself is a member of the RCD, although he is portrayed as a technocrat whose remit did not extend beyond economic affairs under Ben Ali’s presidency.
He named Najib Chebbi, founder of the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) which opposed Ben Ali, as minister of regional development. Ettajdid party leader Ahmed Ibrahim will be higher education minister, while Mustafa Ben Jaafar, head of the Union of Freedom and Labour, is to be health minister.
“We are committed to intensifying our efforts to re-establish calm and peace in the hearts of all Tunisians. Our priority is security, as well as political and economic reform,” Mr Ghannouchi told a news conference.
Many of those on the streets of Tunis were angry about the prospect of RCD members remaining in government, however.
“So long as they’re in government, the country can’t move on,” said Rami Moalla, a young protester who marched to Place du 7 Novembre with a large police escort.
“A lot of my friends didn’t want to come out. They’re afraid, they think it’s too early and we should wait and see. But for me the revolution isn’t over.”
A source with knowledge of the government selection process told The Irish Times it was delayed yesterday because a number of nominees declined to accept the position of culture minister.
Other supporters of the protest movement said they believed the inclusion of RCD members in government was necessary to ensure a stable transition.
“There would be chaos if they were not included,” said Monia Ben Jemai of the executive council of the Tunisian Association of Women Democrats, which suffered repression under Ben Ali’s regime.
“There are no other solutions for now. We don’t have a choice,” she said, before suggesting that if a presidential election was held in two months, the RCD would win. “Under a dictatorship there’s no opposition, only resistance. They’re not known to the public.”
With the circumstances of Ben Ali’s departure last Friday still largely mysterious, meanwhile, speculation continued yesterday that the army played a decisive role in his removal.
In an interview with the daily Le Parisien, Adm Jacques Lanxade, a former French chief of staff and later ambassador to Tunisia, suggested the army made a pivotal decision in refusing to open fire in the days leading up to the president’s fall last Friday.
“It’s the army which walked out on Ben Ali when it refused – unlike the regime’s police – to fire on the crowds,” he pointed out.
“Faced with this real groundswell of the Tunisian population, Ben Ali fled because he became aware of the impossibility of him re-establishing the situation when those whom he had counted on had abandoned him.”
Chief of staff of the land army, Gen Rachid Ammar, resigned in the days before Ben Ali’s departure, and Adm Lanxade suggested he was the first to tell the president to leave.
Public and private statements by foreign powers may also have helped convince Ben Ali to go. Two days earlier, the state department in Washington said it was deeply concerned by reports of the use of excessive force “by the government of Tunisia”.
The following day, in a rare criticism by former colonial power France, long a close ally of Ben Ali, prime minister François Fillon condemned the “disproportionate use of force by the authorities”.
A further factor may have been the collapse of tourism after several countries advised their citizens to stay away from Tunisia, whose economy is heavily dependent on the tourist industry.
French daily Le Monde reported yesterday that some European governments suspected that Libyan intelligence had helped get Ben Ali out of the country.
On the streets of Tunis, respect and admiration for the army is widely felt.
“The army is protecting us,” said Aziz Sombol from Le Kram, a Tunis suburb. “We don’t have confidence in the police, but in the army we do.”
Several of the tanks stationed on Bourguiba Avenue yesterday had bouquets of flowers thrown on to their turrets by passersby.