TUNIS: Tunisia's interim president and prime minister quit the party of ousted leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali Tuesday, state media said, amid protests over the inclusion of party members in the new government.

The Constitutional Democratic Rally meanwhile expelled disgraced former president Ben Ali and six of his close associates, the official TAP news agency reported.

The resignations of interim President Foued Mebazaa and Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi come after the government appointed a day earlier decided to separate the organs of state and political parties, TAP reported.

The decision to expel Ben Ali and the others was made "on the basis of an inquiry carried out at party level following the serious events that rocked the country" in recent weeks, it said.

Earlier, four ministers quit the day-old government, undermining its hopes of quelling unrest by sharing power with members of the opposition to the old regime.

All who resigned were opponents of Ben Ali's iron-fisted 23-year rule and had been named to the government on Monday. It was not immediately clear if the resignations could bring down the government, which has 40 full and junior ministers.

Clashes broke out in central Tunis around the time the resignations were announced, as police fought off protesters demanding that the new Cabinet be purged of the old guard.

Riot police in shielded helmets pummeled a protester to the ground with batons and boot kicks as other officers fired off tear gas grenades to disperse a crowd of several hundred demonstrators.

“I am afraid that our revolution will be stolen from me and my people. The people are asking for freedoms and this new government is not. They are the ones who oppressed the people for 22 years,” said Ines Mawdud, a 22-year-old student among protesters at the demonstration.

A month of unrest has devastasted the Mediterranean nation's tourist industry. Thousands of tourists have been evacuated, and Germany's tour operator TUI AG said Tuesday it is canceling all departures to Tunisia through Feb. 15.

Junior Minister for Transportation and Equipment Anouar Ben Gueddour said he had resigned along with Houssine Dimassi, the labor minister, and minister without portfolio Abdeljelil Bedoui.

The three ministers are all members of a top labor union, the UGTT, which is not a party but is a movement that acts like a lobby and has a big nationwide base to mobilize people around the country.

Health Minister Mustapha Ben Jaafar of the FDLT opposition party also resigned, party member Hedi Raddaoui said. The Culture Minister, Moufida Tlatli, said she was considering resigning but was consulting her supporters first.

Meanwhile, a 25-year-old unemployed man died in a hospital on Tuesday after setting himself on fire in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria, security officials said, amid a wave of self-immolation attempts possibly inspired by events in Tunisia.

Alexandria resident Ahmed Hashem El-Sayed had been unemployed for a year and suffered from depression and may have been mimicking the Tunisian man who set himself alight last month and set off a popular uprising that deposed the government there, said officials.

The death comes amid a rash of such attempts in Egypt. On Tuesday, two men attempted to set themselves on fire in downtown Cairo, just a day after another man soaked himself in gasoline and burned himself in front of parliament. All three survived, however.

El-Sayed, a construction worker, was on his roof in Alexandria when he slashed his wrists and set himself on fire Monday night, the officials added, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media. They said El-Sayed has suffered from depression since one of his brothers set himself on fire and died five years ago.

In another development, Sudanese security officers arrested opposition leader Hassan Al-Turabi from his Khartoum home early on Tuesday just hours after he warned of a Tunisia-style uprising.

Turabi's detention shortly before 1a.m. (2200 GMT Monday) was part of a wave of arrests against members of his Popular Congress Party, as Sudan stands at a crossroads following a landmark southern independence vote expected to lead to the partition of Africa's largest nation.

Turabi’s No. 2 Abdullah Hassan Ahmed said nine other party members had been arrested on Monday and vowed the party would take to the streets to change the government, which he accused of rigging general elections last year, stoking inflation and curbing civil liberties.

"We are taking to the streets to confront this regime," Ahmed told a news conference in Khartoum, to cries of "Allahu Akbar."