On the morning of 15 January 2011 Ghannouchi had handed over the presidency to Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Fouad Mebazaa, This was done after the head of Tunisia's Constitutional Council, Fethi Abdennadher declared that Ghannouchi did not have right to power and confirmed Fouad Mebazaa as acting president under Article 57 of the 1959 Constitution.

Ghannouchi returning to his previous position as prime minister was confirmed as prime minister by Mebazaa and formed a new national unity government on 17 January 2011 that included members of opposition parties, civil society representatives, and even a blogger who only a week previous had been imprisoned by the regime of the deposed president.

Following the various protests that followed after the formation of this government, Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi and interim president Fouad Mebazaa announce that they are no longer members of the Democratic Constitutional Rally.

On 20 January the other ministers still members of the RCD announced that they had done the same: they were Kamel Morjane, Ridha Grira, Ahmed Friaâ, Moncer Rouissi and Zouheir M'dhaffer.

The same day M'Dhaffer a close confidant of Ben Ali in charge of Administrative Development also resigned from his ministerial functions.