TUNIS, (Reuters) – Tunisia’s interim leaders said they freed the last of its political prisoners and promised a “complete break with the past” yesterday to appease street protesters who want a total purge of the old guard.
Five days after veteran strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia with some of his wealthy entourage, former political allies including the prime minister were still trying to coax opposition figures into a national unity government which can restore order and oversee promised free elections.
State television said 33 of Ben Ali’s clan had been arrested for crimes against the nation. It showed what it said was seized gold and jewellery. Switzerland froze Ben Ali’s family assets.
Demonstrators, though less numerous than during the days of rage which unseated Ben Ali, continued to insist on the removal of all ministers from his once feared RCD party. Only that, they said, could satisfy the hopes of their “Jasmine Revolution”, which has delivered a shock to autocrats across the Arab world.
Members of the interim leadership who held senior roles in the RCD have rushed to distance themselves from it. Interim President Fouad Mebazza and Prime Minister Mohamed al-Ghannouchi both quit the part on Tuesday.
In a televised address yesterday, Mebazza, until last week the speaker of Ben Ali’s rubber-stamp parliament, hailed a “revolution of freedom and dignity” and promised that the RCD’s decades of dominance of the Tunisian state were at an end.
“We very much want to separate the state from the RCD,” he said. “There will be a complete break with the past.”
