A Tunisian court ordered the former ruling RCD party's to be dissolved Wednesday, consigning a key pillar of toppled president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's 23-year regime to the scrapheap. The Rally for Constitutional Democracy (RCD) had already been suspended from official duties in February after Ben Ali fled on January 14 at the height of a popular uprising to overthrow his autocratic regime.
The court "has decided to dissolve the Rally for Constitutional Democracy and to liquidate its assets and funds," the ruling said, triggering a burst of applause in a court room filled with hundreds of people. Some in the crowd broke into the national anthem as others shouted "RCD go away!", "Free Tunisia!" and "Martyrs, we are continuing the struggle", a reference to the scores killed in the weeks-long revolt that toppled Ben Ali.
Advocates in their robes and people wrapped in the national flag mixed into the throng, which spilled out of the building, an AFP reporter said. There had been fears the party, which claimed a membership of two million people out of a population of 12 million, would attempt to stage a comeback at the ballot box. Demands for its dissolution, as well as the removal of holdovers from the Ben Ali regime in new interim authority, had been a focus of demonstrations that continued after the ageing dictator fled. The court case against the RCD was lodged by the interior ministry which accused the party of violating the constitution to set up a one-party "totalitarian regime" under Ben Ali. Since it was created in 1988, the party had never been audited and had never filed annual accounts, the ministry added.
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