ANALYSIS: Change in the air in Tunisia as Ben Ali hangs by a thread

By Clare Byrne Jan 14, 2011, 14:46 GMT

Paris - Change was in the air in Tunisia on Friday, as sweeping restrictions on civil liberties came tumbling down on the orders of embattled President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.

'It's as if we woke up to a new country,' a French television journalist remarked in amazement, describing how, for the first time since the beginning of a month-long popular uprising, foreign television teams had been allowed to freely film the protests.

Internet users were also revelling as Ben Ali's authoritarian regime lifted its blockade on a plethora of news sites, radical opposition party websites and social networking accounts.

And, for the first time since the former soldier came to power 23 years ago, radical opposition politicians were invited onto the set of a debate programme on state television Thursday evening.

The programme was discussing the riots, which have killed dozens of people, mostly protestors slain by police bullets.

'It's remarkable,' a Tunisian journalist and blogger said. 'Ben Ali has really softened his tone.'

But for many Tunisians the taste of new freedoms merely whetted their appetite for real change.

'No to Ben Ali,' thousands of demonstrators who marched on the interior ministry, which controls the police and has become a symbol of the callousness of Ben Ali's regime, shouted.

'Ben Ali has too much blood on his hands,' one young woman told French television BFM.

For nearly three decades Tunisia's leader has kept a tight trip on power, neutering the opposition and turning the small north African country into a police state in the name of warding off Islamic extremists.

Outside Tunisia, few had seemed to care as long as the 74-year-old leader maintained stability, and kept the fundamentalists that threaten other countries in the region, particularly Algeria and Egypt, at bay.

'An enlightened autocrat,' is how former colonial power France describes Ben Ali, pointing to Tunisia's strong economic growth, generous social programmes and focus on education.

In 2010, Tunisian universities produced a record 80,000 graduates - an impressive figure for a developing country of around 10 million people.

But after being sold on the dream of a bright future, many educated Tunisians feel betrayed as they wind up jobless - particularly when they see lesser-qualified candidates beat them to a job because of their political connections.

That frustration was the spark for the public suicide of a young man, Mohamed Bouazizi, outside a government building in mid-December.

Bouazizi, who was one of the few in his family to finish high school, took his life after suffering repeated harassment from the authorities for trying to eke out a living from selling vegetables on the street.

His desperation in the face of official disregard for his plight struck a chord among Tunisians.

'There was a collective stock-taking, ' Tunisian author Hele Beji explained on a debate programme on French television. 'We said 'We are all of us wandering vegetable vendors.''

But it was the brutality of the police's response to the ensuing riots that set the stage for a full-scale uprising, which showed no sign of abating Friday.

So far Ben Ali's attempts to appease his critics have come to naught.

First he vowed to create hundreds of thousands of jobs within two years- a promise slammed as unrealistic. He also fired his interior minister - but the police bullets continued to fly.

By Thursday, as the riots spread to all corners of the country, including the tourist resort of Hammamet, he was assuring he would not seek reelection after his term runs out in 2014.

But for many Tunisians, three years is too long a wait for new leadership.

At demonstrations across the country Friday protestors chanted: 'Pain et eau et Ben Ali non' (Bread and water, and no to Ben Ali).

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