Protesters pressured Tunisia’s new interim government to quit yesterday, as the Cabinet prepared a major shake-up and a top US envoy visited.
Hundreds of protesters from poor regions in the center of the country chanted anti-government slogans in front of Tunisian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi’s offices for a third day, saying they would not leave until the Cabinet resigns.
Many people are angry that officials from former Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s regime, like Ghannouchi, remain in the Cabinet. Protesters also want Ben Ali’s Constitutional Democratic Rally party (RCD) disbanded.
Late on Monday, the interim government agreed to grant 260 million euros (US$355 million) to poor rural regions where an uprising against Ben Ali’s authoritarian rule began last month.
Tunisian Regional Development Minister Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, a former opposition leader, announced the decision on a talk show. He said the money would go toward public works projects, reimburse businesses that have suffered damage and compensate the families of dozens of “martyrs” killed in a bloody crackdown by Ben Ali’s security forces.
Earlier in the day, Army chief General Rachid Ammar had waded into the crowd of protesters outside the prime minister’s office and asked them to leave, warning a “power vacuum” could lead to dictatorship and promising the army would be a “guarantor” for the revolution.
Taieb Baccouch, a spokesman for the government and the education minister, said a Cabinet reshuffle involving at least six new ministers was under discussion and could be announced yesterday.
US Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman, the top-ranking US official on the Middle East, arrived in Tunis on Monday to press the caretaker government on democratic reforms and new elections. He is due to leave Tunis later today.
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