Tunisia's government began to unravel Sunday as the secular party of President Moncef Marzouki pulled out of the Islamist-led coalition.
A spokesman for the Congress for the Republic (CPR) said the party withdrawn its three ministers over the failure to reach agreement on a new cabinet, the official TAP agency reported. The party said it would explain its decision at a press conference Monday.
The announcement deals a blow to the government as it attempts to contain the fallout from the assassination Wednesday of opposition leader Chokri Belaid.
Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali had been trying for weeks to get his ruling Ennahda party, the CPR and another secular coalition partner, Ettakatol, to agree on a new cabinet.
Hours after Belaid's death he said he would hurry along the shake-up and dissolve the entire government to make way for a cabinet of technocrats.
The plan has put him on a collision course with the conservative wing of Ennahda, led by party leader Rachid Ghannouchi. Ghannouchi argues that Ennahda has a mandate to govern after winning 2011
elections, albeit without an outright majority.
Jebali, who is seen as a moderate, has threatened to resign if the team he will unveil by mid-week is rejected.
On Saturday, around 3,000 Ennahda supporters marched in the capital Tunis to try reclaim the streets after three days of anti-government protests.
"The people still want Ennahda," the demonstrators chanted as they marched along the central Habib Bourguiba Avenue. They accused France of meddling in Tunisian affairs over critical remarks by Interior Minister Manuel Valls and ordered Paris to "degage" (get lost),
buzzword of the 2011 Jasmine Revolution.
Belaid's killing is the first assassination since the revolution.
The 48-year-old lawyer and leftist Popular Front coordinator was shot dead outside his home by an unidentified gunman. More than 40,000 people took part in his funeral Friday.
The opposition has blamed Ennahda for his death - an accusation party leader Rachid Ghannouchi denied again in an interview Sunday.
Speaking to Algeria's El Khabar newspaper Ghannouchi argued it was "not in the interest of the ruling party to explode the ground beneath its feet."
"Chokri Belaid is not (Mohamed) Bouazizi and I am not Ben Ali," he said.
Bouazizi is the impoverished street trader whose self-immolation in December 2010 triggered the uprising against Ben Ali.
Many Tunisians complain that little has changed to improve their lot in the two years since.