Former Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali dies in Saudi Arabia aged 83

The former president of Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, died on Thursday in Saudi Arabia at the age of 83, reports the Reuters agency which quotes the family lawyer.

Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali Death

“Ben Ali has just died in Saudi Arabia”

lawyer Mounir Ben Salha said in a statement to Reuters. Ben Ali had been living in exile in Saudi Arabia since 2011 after fleeing his country following a popular uprising against his dictatorial regime.

His departure after 23 years in power had enabled Tunisia to begin the democratic transition and paved the way for the first free presidential elections in the country’s history.

Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali: Short biography

Born on September 3, 1936 in Hammam Sousse, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali joined the Tunisian army when he was young, where he was trained at the Special Military School of Saint-Cyr (France) as well as in the United States. He climbed the ranks of the army and was appointed head of the Tunisian National Security in 1978. He was appointed in 1985 by President Bourguiba as Minister of National Security and then added the following year the portfolio of the Interior, before being elevated to the rank of Prime Minister in October 1987.

On November 7, 1987, he deposed President Habib Bourguiba by a coup, using the constitution and on the strength of a medical report signed by seven doctors attesting to Bourguiba’s incapacity. “The era we are living in can no longer suffer from a presidency for life or automatic succession at the head of the state from which the people find themselves excluded”, he declared in his first speech as President of Tunisia. .

There followed an unchallenged reign of Tunisia for 23 years by Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his clan, symbolized by his second wife Leïla Trabelsi. The cult of personality develops and thrives around the image of Ben Ali, while dissenting voices are silenced by an omnipresent political police in the country. Behind the façade of a country with a prosperous economy, social inequalities are widening and creating a gap between the rich caste and the rest of the population held in poverty.

The breaking point was reached in December 2010, when Mohamed Bouaziz, a young street vendor living in Sidi Bouzid in deep Tunisia, committed suicide by setting himself on fire after suffering yet another injustice. Too much injustice. A month of popular protests against the Ben Ali regime followed which led to the ousted president fleeing with his wife and family to Saudi Arabia, where he would benefit from the protection of the royal family.

Subject of an international arrest warrant to answer for the multitude of crimes committed during his reign (intentional homicides, abuse of power, embezzlement, etc.), Ben Ali was pronounced against him in absentia five life sentences and to more than two centuries in prison. His death closes a dark but complex chapter in the history of Tunisia. The question remains as to the place of the last resting place of the deposed dictator, rumors having expressed the will of Ben Ali to be buried in Saudi Arabia and not in Tunisia.