Three Tunisia opposition leaders in transitional unity government

Dubai: Tunisia on Tuesday unveiled unprecedented freedoms and announced the release of political prisoners after a popular revolt, but the ousted president's party held on to key posts in the new cabinet.

Prime Minister Mohammad Gannouchi will remain as head of the transitional government, which will prepare for presidential and parliamentary elections after former president Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali resigned and fled on Friday.

Seven other ministers from the disgraced president's party will retain their posts including the key foreign, interior, defence and finance ministries in the new government of national unity out of a total 23 ministers.

It includes three leaders of the legal opposition as well as representatives of civil society. The opposition leaders were appointed to the health, higher education and regional development ministries.

The government excluded banned opposition parties including the Communists and the Islamist Ennahdha party.

However, Gannouchi said that all political parties will be allowed, the media will be freed and a ban on the free operation of non-governmental groups including Tunisia's main human rights group, the Human Rights League, will be lifted.

"We announce total freedom of information," Gannouchi said.

"We have decided to allow all associations to have normal activities without any interference on the part of the government," he said.

Gannouchi said the new government had also scrapped the information ministry — a widely hated organ responsible for official propaganda and media controls.

A ‘masquerade'

Meanwhile, in Paris, one of Tunisia's best known opposition figures, Moncef Marzouki, branded the new goverment a "masquerade" still dominated by supporters of Bin Ali. "Tunisia deserved much more," the secular leftist declared.

"Ninety dead, four weeks of real revolution, only for it to come to this? A unity government in name only because, in reality, it is made up of members of the party of dictatorship, the RCD," he said, on France's I-Tele.

Earlier, Marzouki had confirmed that he would be a candidate for president in the next election.

Copycat protests spread

A self-immolation that triggered unrest which brought down Tunisia's leader has led to apparent copycat protests in other north African states, with four men setting themselves on fire in Algeria and one each in Egypt and Mauritania. In Cairo, a man set himself ablaze yesterday near parliament in a protest against poor living conditions.

In Algeria, where riots over the last few weeks have broken out in parallel to the unrest in Tunisia, newspapers gave their first reports on Sunday and yesterday of at least four men who set themselves on fire.

In Mauritania, Yacoub Ould Dahoud, 42, stopped his car in front of the Senate, which is several metres from the presidency in the capital, and set himself alight inside the vehicle, witnesses said. He had called journalists to tell them he intended to carry out the act because he was "unhappy with the political situation in the country and angry with the government". Police intervened and he was taken to hospital.

"Are we seeing a new trend?" wrote Blake Hounshell, who covers the Middle East at foreignpolicy.com. "There is something horrifying and, in a way, moving about these suicide attempts. It's a shocking, desperate tactic that instantly attracts attention, revulsion, but also sympathy."

Activists throughout the Arab world say they have been inspired by the example of Tunisia, the first country in generations where an Arab leader was toppled by public protests.