Tensions loom as Tunisia marks its Arab Spring revolution

Tunisians on Monday marked two years since the flight into exile of veteran dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali amid a climate of uncertainty marked by social tension, a weak economy, threats from jihadists and a political impasse.

President Moncef Marzouki, Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali and parliamentary speaker Mustapha Ben Jaafar saluted the national flag at a modest ceremony in Tunis to mark the occasion.

The three men, who represent the ruling coalition headed by the Islamist party Ennahda, gathered at the Kasbah, next to the government’s headquarters, for the brief ceremony, which was attended by the leaders of the main political parties.

Shortly afterwards, Jebali, the secretary general of Tunsia’s main labour union, Hocine Abassi, and Wided Bouchamaoui, representing Tunisian employers, signed a “social pact” at the National Constituent Assembly.

With unemployment considered a driving factor behind the revolution, and with Tunisia still rocked by repeated protests over poor living conditions, some of them deadly, the signing of the accord was loaded with symbolic importance.

In the city centre, political activists prepared to march down Habib Bourguiba Avenue, the epicentre of the mass uprising that toppled Ben Ali on January 14, 2011 and touched off the Arab Spring.