Thousands of Tunisians take to the streets despite president's vow to quit

The Guardian

Thousands of Tunisians took to the streets again today to demand that the president leave office immediately, after Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali said last night he would not seek re-election in 2014.

An estimated 5,000 people gathered outside the interior ministry in the capital, Tunis, to denounce the president, who has ruled for 23 years.

At least 23 people have died in police clashes during a month of protests. Independent estimates put the actual death toll around three times higher.

Angelique Chrisafis reports from Tunis Ben Ali, 74, said police would stop shooting at demonstrators and called for freedom of the press and the lowering of sugar, milk and bread prices, one of the protesters' key complaints.

"I understand the Tunisians, I understand their demands," Ben Ali said. "I am sad about what is happening now after 50 years of service to the country, military service, all the different posts, 23 years of the presidency."

The latest demonstration drew students, doctors, former political prisoners and lawyers in their robes. The crowd chanted: "Bread, water, Ben Ali out!"

One of the demonstrators, Nabil Montasser, a university researcher, told the Guardian: "It's time for him to leave. It's time for him to prove with actions that he meant what he said in the speech."

Ben Ali's foreign minister, Kamel Morjane, said this morning that the president was prepared to hold parliamentary elections before 2014. Interviewed on France's Europe 1 radio, Morjane said a coalition with the opposition in parliament – currently dominated by Ben Ali's ruling party – was "possible".

"The president is a man of his word. He said it yesterday, he believes it and he will do it," Morjane said.

One plan was a revision of the electoral system "He said there would be no more holding of presidential and legislative elections in parallel. In so doing, he accepted the principle of [legislative] elections before the presidential poll in 2014," Morjane said.

The violence began last month after an unemployed graduate set himself on fire when police tried to stop him selling vegetables without a permit. He later died.

The previous tactic of permitting security services to fire on demonstrators prompted criticism from France, which ruled the country until 1956, as well as the US, the EU and UN.

The Foreign Office advises against all but essential travel to Tunisia. The tour operator Thomas Cook said today it planned to fly home about 1,800 British customers currently in the country.