In Saturday's rally in Tunis, demonstrators flew the Ennahda flag bearing a blue dove, crescent moon and red star. Banners pledged that "we are here by the people's will, only bayonets will make us leave" and "the revolution continues," referring to January 2011, when the country united to oust former leader Ben Ali from power.

"Ennahda will not leave power as long as people want it," Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi told assembled supporters.

The February 6 assassination of Chokri Belaid, a human rights lawyer and opposition figure, threw Tunisia into turmoil, two years after it staged the first and most successful of the revolutions that have spread through Arab countries.

Belaid's allleged killer remains on the loose, after Tunisia's first political assassination in decades. Some Belaid supporters have blamed the League for the Protection of the Revolution, an Ennahda-linked group that has been implicated in attacks on the secular opposition., for his death Over the weekend of Feb. 8-10, protests swept the country, targeting Ennahda offices and leaving one police officer dead.

Autocrat, democrat, technocrat

After the assassination, Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali proposed forming a nonpartisan government of technocrats until an election could take place, an idea that drew ire from his own party and a junior partner in the ruling coalition. Ghannouchi, the Ennahda leader, rejected Jebali's proposal, but has said it is essential for future governments to include both Islamist and secular parties.

Jebali has threatened to resign if he is not allowed to form the a technocrat government. However, after meeting with leaders of Tunisia's main parties on Friday, Jebali canceled the deadline for a decision, originally scheduled for Saturday, and said further talks would happen on Monday.

Estimates vary on the attendance at Saturday's rally. A spokesman for the Ennahda-run Interior Ministry told the Reuters news agency that more than 100,000 supporters had taken part - twice the number that attended Belaid's funeral demonstration. Security sources, however, put Saturday's numbers somewhere in the tens of thousands.

mkg/pfd (AFP, Reuters, AP)