TUNIS, Jan 18: The resignation of three ministers rocked Tunisia's fledgling unity government on Tuesday as protesters vented their anger against the new leadership.

The ministers, representing Tunisia's main trade union, announced their withdrawal after the union refused to recognise an administration that contains eight ministers from former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's discredited regime.

“We are resigning from the government,” said Houssine Dimassi, employment minister in the transitional government that was only unveiled on Monday. The opposition party also suspended its participation.

A representative of the popular movement Ennahdha (Awakening) said meanwhile it would seek to acquire legal status as a political party and take part in planned parliamentary elections.

“If democracy is installed, we will be a party like all the others, we will have our rights and our duties,” Ali Laraidh, imprisoned for 14 years under Tunisia's old regime for plotting against the state, said.

One of Ben Ali's fiercest critics, Moncef Marzouki, also returned to Tunisia on Tuesday after years of exile in Paris. There were emotional scenes at Tunis airport as he greeted a group of supporters.

Marzouki has said he intends to run in the presidential election.

Tunisia's new leadership is due to hold parliamentary and presidential elections in the next six months, although no precise dates have been set.

Marzouki said he would travel to the city of Sidi Bouzid in central Tunisia where social protests that escalated into a revolt against Ben Ali kicked off last month, calling the area “a land of martyrs and free people.” Ben Ali ended his 23-year rule by fleeing to Saudi Arabia on Friday.

The Tunisian revolt has inspired dissidents in several Arab countries and there has been a spate of public suicides similar to the one of a 26-year-old graduate whose self-immolation in Sidi Bouzid sparked the protests.

Two Egyptians set themselves on fire on Tuesday and father-of-six became the fifth Algerian to turn himself into a human fireball.

In tightly controlled Yemen, police fired warning shots as hundreds of protesters chanted pro-Tunisia slogans at Sanaa University.

Anger against the new government line-up brought thousands of protesters onto the streets of Tunis and several other cities on Tuesday.

Riot police fired tear gas to break up a rally in Tunis led by key political figure Sadok Chourou, who was imprisoned for 20 years under the old regime.

“The new government does not represent the people and has to fall,” Mr Chourou, 63, a former leader of the Ennahdha movement, told AFP.

Protesters chanted: “We can live on bread and water alone but not with the RCD” – a reference to the former ruling party which has held on to key posts in the new government, including the foreign, defence and interior ministries.

All public assemblies are officially banned under the rules of a state of emergency declared just hours before Ben Ali's ouster.—AFP