To vote emergency powers for interim president
Monday, 07 February 2011
Tunisia's parliament met Monday to vote emergency powers for the country's interim president after the government banned the ruling party of ousted leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi told the 125 deputies present in the 214-seat parliament that they had to approve the measure in order to bring peace to a country still mired in turmoil three weeks after Ben Ali was ousted in a popular revolt.
"Time is precious. Tunisia has real need of rule by decree to remove dangers," he said at the first parliamentary session since Ben Ali's overthrow.
There are people who want Tunisia to go backwards but we must honor our martyrs who fought for liberty 
"There are people who want Tunisia to go backwards but we must honor our martyrs who fought for liberty."
A vote on the new legislation will take place later Monday before the measure goes before the upper house of parliament, the Senate.
If approved it will give interim president Foued Mebazaa power to rule by decree and sidestep a parliament dominated by the Constitutional Democratic Assembly (RCD), the party of Ben Ali which was suspended on Sunday.
Eighty percent of deputies belong to the long-feared RCD, which had a monopoly on power under Ben Ali and could still stand in the way of reform.
Prior to Monday's vote hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside parliament demanding the dissolution of the assembly, known as the unpopular RDC's one-time power base.
First step
The suspension on Sunday is a first step towards dissolving the party which opponents fear could return to power following elections scheduled for six months from now.
The party claims two million members out of a total population of 10 million and remains a well-organized political group which could mount a strong political campaign.
Under the suspension, the RDC is banned from organizing meetings and public gatherings while its offices have been shut down.
The government moved to suspend the party in part to soothe renewed bouts of violence that have broken out after it relaxed a curfew imposed on January 12.
The interim government, which replaced top police chiefs and the governors of all of Tunisia's 24 provinces just days before, had hoped the move would help calm the unrest.
But protesters and opposition politicians are calling for a more thorough shakeup, judging some of the newly named governors too close to the old regime and the RDC.
Latest unrest
In unrest northwest of the capital on Sunday 40 people were injured, one badly burned in the torching of a police station, in the town of Kef, hospital sources said.
In the southern town of Kebili, one youth died after he was hit by a tear gas canister during clashes with security forces, the state news agency TAP reported.
An interior ministry source said that two people were killed and 13 injured, including four policemen, in street protests in Kef on Saturday.
Several hundred demonstrators had been calling for Kef police chief Khaled Ghazouani to be sacked for abuse of power, according to TAP.
By Monday calm was restored in the town with soldiers patrolling the streets, local union official Raouf Hadaoui told AFP by telephone from Tunis.
TAP meanwhile reported the arrests of two members of the security forces suspected over the deaths of two detainees in Sidi Bouzid, in the centre of the country.
It was in Sidi Bouzid that a young man, Mohamed Bouazizi, died after setting himself on fire on December 17, triggering the uprising.
French controversy
Alliot-Marie gets in more trouble every day and her resignation is all but inevitable. It's a question of hours Meanwhile France's foreign minister faced new calls to resign as she struggled to extract herself from a controversy over a holiday she took in Tunisia while its uprising flared.
Senior opposition Socialists railed on Michele Alliot-Marie after she acknowledged on Saturday she had used a Tunisian businessman's private jet several times during the holiday at the end of December, not only for one trip as she had indicated last week.
"Alliot-Marie gets in more trouble every day and her resignation is all but inevitable. It's a question of hours," Jean-Marc Ayrault, who heads the Socialists in France's National Assembly, told RTL radio.
Senior Socialist lawmaker Francois Hollande said the flap had left a void in French diplomacy and called on President Nicolas Sarkozy to dump her.
"Either he defends and keeps Michele Alliot-Marie...and he bears the consequences in the 2012 presidential elections, or he takes decisions and makes choices about the government line-up," Hollande told i-Tele television.
Alliot-Marie insisted on Saturday that she had done nothing wrong and said she had paid for her trip herself with the exception of her hotels, which her parents, who were also on the trip along with her partner, paid for.
The attacks left fellow conservatives scrambling to rally behind her and French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said she had her support "without reserve" and hoped that she would stay.
"I'm not the team leader. It's up to the Prime Minister (Francois Fillon) to make decisions about his team, but personally I hope" she stays, Lagarde said during an interview on France 5 television.
France, Tunisia's former colonial ruler, was surprised by the pace of developments before Ben Ali fled on Jan. 14, and two days before Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia, Alliot-Marie provoked shouts of anger in parliament when she said Paris was offering Tunisia French crowd control expertise.
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