Tunisia Analysis: Will the New Government Survive?

Yesterday morning, we asked the question, "Converting the Opposition into Government Supporters?" 

We got it wrong. The query should have "Collapsing the Government with Opposition Resignations?" Four ministers --- trade unionists Anouar Ben Gueddour, Houssine Dimassi, and Abdeljelil Bedoui and leader of the Democratic Forum for Work and Liberty, Mustafa Ben Jaafar --- left in protest at the presence of members of the Constitutional  Democratic Rally (RCD), the party of deposed President Ben Ali, in the Cabinet. A fifth Minister, Progressive Democratic Party leader Ahmed Ibrahim, said he would quit until the Government broke all ties with the RCD and Ministers who had profited from ties with the party returned the money.

Tunisia LiveBlog: Righting the Government Ship

Meanwhile, running protests in Tunis by an estimated 300 people, in a cat-and-mouse game with police using water cannon and batons, offered dramatic visual images of resistance to the new Government. Perhaps more importantly --- because they seem not to have challenged by security forces --- there were large, vocal demonstrations in other cities across Tunisia (see video). And there was an enthusiastic welcome at the airport in Tunis for the returning activist and declared candidate for President, Moncef Marzouk

Last evening, President Fuad Mbazaa and Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi tried to right the Government ship by resigning from the RCD. The party also carried out the symbolic move of expelling Ben Ali and other members of his regime.

Will that be enough, however, to check the protests inside and outside the Tunisian establishment? 

Perhaps the most striking political development, given the symbolism of resistance and Government, was was the Minister who did not resign. Blogger Slim Amamou, an iconic figure inside and outside Tunisia because of his challenge to Ben Ali through social media, the man who had been arrested a week before Ben Ali fell and whose release symbolised the "new" Tunisia, refused to step down as Minister of Youth and Sport. 

Amamou said he would resign when he decided, not when others did. But that only brought further - questions.

What should he decide? And what will others, in the meeting rooms and on the streets, now decide?