{"id":43084,"date":"2019-09-20T10:27:07","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T02:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=43084"},"modified":"2019-09-20T10:29:47","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T02:29:47","slug":"tunisias-ousted-president-ben-ali-dies-in-saudi-exile-lawyer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=43084","title":{"rendered":"Tunisia’s ousted president Ben Ali dies in Saudi exile-lawyer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

ZINE El-Abidine Ben Ali\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TUNIS, Sept 20 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Tunisia\u2019s ousted Pres Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali died in exile in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, days after a free presidential election in his homeland, his family lawyer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBen Ali just died in Saudi Arabia,\u201d the lawyer, Mounir Ben Salha, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ben Ali fled Tunisia in January 2011 as his compatriots rose up against his oppressive rule in a revolution that inspired other Arab Spring uprisings abroad and led to a democratic transition at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Sunday, Tunisians voted in an election that featured candidates from across the political spectrum, sending two political outsiders through to a second round vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While almost all the candidates in Sunday\u2019s election were vocal champions of the revolution, one of them, Abir Moussi, campaigned as a supporter of Ben Ali\u2019s ousted government, receiving 4% of the votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A former security chief, Ben Ali had run Tunisia for 23 years, taking power when, as prime minister in 1987, he declared president-for-life Habib Bourguiba medically unfit to rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In office, he sought to stifle any form of political dissent while opening up the economy, a policy that led to rapid growth but also fuelled grotesque inequality and accusations of brazen corruption, not least among his own relatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the few occasions his rule was put to the vote, he faced only nominal opposition and won re-election by more than 99%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Sunday, by contrast Tunisians chose between 26 candidates including both Ben Ali\u2019s own former supporter Moussi and an ex-political prisoner running for the Islamist Ennahda party, which he banned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ben Ali\u2019s rise began in the army after Bourguiba won Tunisia\u2019s independence from France in 1956. He was head of military security from 1964, and of national security from 1977.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a three-year stint as ambassador to Poland, he was called back to his old security job in 1984 to quell riots over bread prices. Now a general, he was made interior minister in 1986 and prime minister in 1987.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took him less than three weeks to arrange a new promotion to the top job, bringing in a team of doctors to declare Bourguiba senile, meaning he would automatically take over as head of state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His first decade as president involved a big economic restructuring – backed by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank – and an annual growth rate slightly over 4% a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wedged between Muammar Gaddafi\u2019s Libya and an Algeria thrust into civil war between the army-backed government and Islamist militants, Ben Ali\u2019s Tunisia followed the post-independence path of secularism and openness to the outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Ben Ali, the sudden end came when a desperate vegetable seller in the humble town of Sidi Bouzid set himself alight in December 2010 after police confiscated his barrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mohammed Bouazizi\u2019s funeral was attended by tens of thousands of furious people, sparking weeks of ever bigger protests in which scores of people were killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By mid January 2011, Ben Ali had had enough, and boarded a plane for Saudi Arabia, then a status quo power that had no truck with the rush towards revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Tunisian court sentenced him in absentia later that year to 35 years in prison. He never appeared in public again. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ZINE El-Abidine Ben Ali TUNIS, Sept 20 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Tunisia\u2019s ousted Pres Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali died in exile in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, days after a free presidential election in his homeland, his family lawyer said. \u201cBen Ali just died in Saudi Arabia,\u201d the lawyer, Mounir Ben Salha, said. Ben Ali fled Tunisia in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43084"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}