Zine El Abidine Ben Ali

President of Tunisia

• Born: September 3, 1936
• Birthplace: Hammam Sousse, Tunisia
• Died: September 19, 2019
• Place of death: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

General Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was elected president of Tunisia in November 1987. A trained electronics engineer, he received a prestigious military education in France and the United States that led to a long career with Tunisia's Ministry of the Interior. Ben Ali also served as a Tunisian diplomat. He succeeded Habib Bourguiba as president following what many believe was a bloodless coup. As president, Ben Ali advocated secular ideas, promoted women's rights, and prioritized education and international relations. However, the media remained under government control, and his ruling party, the Constitutional Democratic Rally, dominated politics in the country. By the time of his fall in the Tunisian revolution of 2011, part of the Arab Spring protests, Ben Ali was viewed by many Tunisians as a dictator.

Background

Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was born on September 3, 1936, in Hammam Sousse, a coastal town in northern Tunisia. Ben Ali came from a large family of modest means. He was sent to a French-administered school in the Tunisian city of Sousse. From a young age, Ben Ali demonstrated an interest in military matters and was a critic of French colonialism. While studying in Sousse, he joined Tunisia's independence movement. Ben Ali served as a runner between activists from Neo-Destour, the liberal constitutional political party in Sousse, and members of guerilla militias operating in the country.

Ben Ali was arrested and briefly imprisoned for his participation in the independence movement. However, it was his access to education that was dealt the strongest blow as a consequence to his political activities. Because of his association with the Neo-Destour, Ben Ali was expelled from school and denied admittance to any French-administered school in the colony, despite his achievements as a student.

Education & Career

In 1956, Tunisia gained its independence from France and became a republic. Habib Bourguiba, the leader of Neo-Destour, became prime minister, and in 1957 he became the first president of the Republic of Tunisia. Bourguiba imposed one-party rule and changed the constitution to allow him to become president for life. Bourguiba dominated the country for over three decades. He promoted secularism, abolished polygamy, and prioritized education in Tunisia. He was also instrumental in securing the rights and emancipation of women in Tunisia.

Following Tunisia's independence, the Neo-Destour Party rewarded Ben Ali for his support with the opportunity to pursue advanced education abroad. Ben Ali was selected to study at Saint-Cyr, a prestigious French military academy in Brittany, France. He later attended the advanced French military school in Châlons-sur-Marne (renamed Châlons-en-Champagne in 1998). Ben Ali received his first formal training in electronic engineering while in France. He also attended a variety of military courses in the United States. While completing his military training, he simultaneously pursued a degree in electronic engineering.

Upon his return to Tunisia in 1964, Ben Ali was assigned the job of administering the Tunisian Military Security Department. He remained in this position until 1974, when he served as the military attaché in the Tunisian embassy in Rabat in the Kingdom of Morocco. He returned to Tunisia in 1977 and was promoted to director general of national security at the Ministry of the Interior. In 1979, he was promoted to the rank of general.

In 1980, Ben Ali was sent to Warsaw as Tunisia's ambassador to Poland, and he remained in this post three and a half years. He returned in 1984 and assumed the position of secretary of state for internal security at the Ministry of the Interior. He quickly rose through the ranks, becoming minister of national security in 1985. In April 1986, he was appointed minister of the interior.

As a prominent figure in the military and in internal security, Ben Ali oversaw security issues related to social unrest in the country. Clashes between the government and workers' unions were commonplace throughout the 1980s, as were protests against the single-party government. Ben Ali was also responsible for quelling riots over food shortages in 1984.

He also dealt with the tensions between the different denominations of Islam in the country. During this period, Islamic fundamentalism increased in Tunisia, largely as a result of Bourguiba's advancement of secularism and close relations with the West. Ben Ali imprisoned many fundamentalists and made efforts to disband their networks. After playing an instrumental role in foiling a plot by fundamentalists to overthrow the Tunisian government, Bourguiba named Ben Ali prime minister and enforcer of law and order on October 2, 1987.

Five weeks after Ben Ali was named the prime minister of Tunisia, he declared President Bourguiba medically unfit for the duties of the office due to senility and ordered him to resign. As prime minister, Ben Ali was the president's constitutional successor. However, many interpret Ben Ali's move as essentially a bloodless coup against Bourguiba. Ben Ali became head of the Socialist Destourian Party (formally the Neo-Destour) and assumed the presidency on November 7, 1987. In 1988, he changed the party's name to the Constitutional Democratic Rally.

Presidency

Ben Ali's presidency fostered some openness and tolerance, yet remained totalitarian in certain respects. President Ben Ali assumed all legislative and executive power in the country. His administration amended the Tunisian constitution to abolish life presidency and automatic succession; however, he remained in office for over two decades after being reelected five times in elections considered suspect by international observers. Nonetheless, Ben Ali advocated many of the same secular ideas as his predecessor and maintained strong economic relations with the West.

Ben Ali sought to defuse domestic and international pressure for a more open political society by promoting his efforts to abolish Islamic fundamentalism in Tunisia. He was more forceful than Bourguiba had been in repressing Islamic fundamentalism. After assuming the position of head of state and government, he continued to isolate fundamentalists and dissolve Islamic fundamentalist opposition groups. Ben Ali also coordinated security and legislative policies against Islamic radicals in a meeting of interior ministers from sixteen Arab states.

In 2006, Ben Ali began to strictly enforce a 1981 law that barred women from wearing headscarves in public. The move was meant to simultaneously afford more freedom to women and combat religious fundamentalism in the country. Ben Ali had women wearing the veils ticketed by police and forced them to sign pledges that they would no longer wear the religious head clothes. Human-rights groups were divided over the regulation, though most agreed that the law deprived women of their basic constitutional rights.

Despite the controversy over headscarves, Ben Ali also improved women's rights in Tunisia. In fact, education, emancipation, and equal-opportunity rights for women in Tunisia are unmatched by any other Arab nation. Additionally, Ben Ali was often praised by Western nations for having one of the highest literacy rates in the world. Under Ben Ali, school attendance for boys and girls was compulsory until the age of sixteen, and in 2008, Tunisia boasted 99 percent attendance rates.

In 2008, the Tunisian media was under strict government control, and independent newspapers and other communications were suppressed. The Constitutional Democratic Rally continued to dominate politics in the country, and Ben Ali was reelected in 2009.

The economy under Ben Ali grew steadily through the first decade of the twenty-first century, largely due to tourism, oil, textiles, and agriculture. Tunisia's export market was strengthened, and economic ventures with Europe, the United States, and neighboring Arab nations increased. However, beginning in 2010, unemployment became widespread in Tunisia, causing civil unrest and decreasing public confidence in the government. Many blamed the failing economy and lack of jobs on suspected government corruption.

On January 14, 2011, public demonstrations against the government led Ben Ali to declare a state of emergency. Numerous deaths occurred amid looting, prison riots, and chaos in the streets. Although Ben Ali tried to quell the violence by addressing the country on television, the tables had turned against him. He fled to Saudi Arabia, marking an end to his twenty-three years in power, and was succeeded by Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi. Despite Ben Ali's years of progress in trying to shape Tunisia into a modern secular state, by the end of his rule Tunisia had one of the worst human rights records in the world.

In June 2011, Ben Ali and his wife, Leïla, were tried in absentia for the suspected theft of money, jewelry, and other valuable items from the state. They were found guilty and sentenced to thirty-five years in prison, as well as issued a hefty fine. In June 2012, Ben Ali was again tried in absentia, this time for the deaths of protestors during the revolution, and given a life sentence. The Saudi government refused Tunisia's requests for extradition.

Personal Life

Ben Ali married Naima Kafi, the daughter of Tunisia's first chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. They had three daughters, Ghazwa, Dorsaf, and Cyrine, before divorcing in 1988. In 1992, Ben Ali married Leïla Trabelsi, with whom he had two daughters, Nesrine and Halima, and a son, Mohamed. In September 2019, Ben Ali was admitted to a hospital in Saudi Arabia after reportedly being treated for prostate cancer.

Bibliography

Adetunji, Jo. "Ben Ali Sentenced to 35 Years in Jail." Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 20 June 2011. Web. 19 Jan. 2015.

Hubbard, Ben, and Rick Gladstone. "Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, 83, Tunisia Autocrat Ousted in Arab Spring, Dies." The New York Times, 19 Sept. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/world/middleeast/tunisia-ben-ali-dead.html. Accessed 20 Nov. 2019.

"Tunisia: President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali Forced Out." BBC News. BBC, 15 Jan. 2011. Web. 19 Jan. 2015.

"Tunisia's Ben Ali Sentenced over Protesters' Deaths." BBC News. BBC, 13 June 2012. Web. 19 Jan. 2015.

"Win Confirms Tunisia Leader in Power." BBC News. BBC, 27 May 2002. Web. 19 Jan. 2015.