Zine El Abidine Ben Ali
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Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (زين العابدين بن علي; born in Hammam-Sousse on September 3, 1936) is the President of the Republic of Tunisia since November 7, 1987 and only the second one since its Independence from France on March 20, 1956.
Early life and training
As a young militant of President Bourguiba's Neo-Destour party, he was sent to France for military training. He graduated from the Inter-Arms School of Saint-Cyr and the Artillery School in Châlons-sur-Marne, and then continued his military training in the United States.
Government appointment
He was appointed to establish and manage the Defense Ministry's Military Security in 1964, which he ran until 1974. General Ben Ali was promoted to director-general of National Security at the Ministry of the Interior in 1977 after serving as military attaché to the Kingdom of Morocco. He returned from four years as Ambassador to Poland to become once again head of National Security at the Ministry of the Interior but this time with Cabinet rank. He assumed this post at a time of increasingly radical Islamist activity. For his success in dealing with this threat to the regime he was promoted to Minister of the Interior, and retained this position until he was appointed Prime Minister. Many disappearances deaths and torture cases were reported to the human rights organisations.
Ben Ali was appointed Prime Minister and constitutional successor by President Habib Bourguiba on October 1, 1987. Only five weeks after becoming head of the government, he had President Bourguiba declared medically unfit for the duties of the office and assumed the presidency on November 7, 1987. The constitutional destitution of President Bourguiba was popular and legitimately based on Article 57, that allowed the procedure; the political life of the country having been deadlocked in an unending presidential succession debate and political crisis, cronyism and economic stagnation.
He then retained his predecessor's pro-western foreign policy and supported the economy which has been growing since the early 1990s. Big public works projects, including airports, highways or housing, have been undertaken. However, unemployment remains the biggest economic problem.
Work as President
Ben Ali continued running the country with an iron's fist. Although he announced a fake political pluralism in 1992, his Democratic Constitutional Rally (formerly Neo-Destour party) continues to dominate the national politics and there is no genuine open political debate. In 1999, although two unknown alternative candidates were permitted for the first time to stand in the presidential elections, Ben Ali was reelected with 99.66% of the vote. Both candidates were arrested and sued for daring to challenge him. He was again reelected on October 24, 2004, officially taking 94.48% of the vote, after a controversial constitutional referendum in 2002 which allowed him to seek reelection and contemplate the possibility of remaining in office until 2014. Freedom of the press is officially guaranteed and condoned. However, human rights organizations state that no freedom of expression is evident in any of the authorized publications as honest criticism, public accountability and scrutiny of the government and it's ministers is totally absent. Cronyism and a mafia-like management style is the norm for running public affairs, and political dissent is not allowed. Jail and fines or confiscation of newspapers is very common, say human rights organizations. Many political prisoners remain in jails or in exile in and out of the country. Many arrests are a result of indiviuals venturing into the internet to bypass government propaganda and controlled press.
He was first married to Naima Kefi, the daughter of General Kefi, Tunisia's first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and had three daughters (Ghazwa, Dorsaf and Cyrine); he divorced her in 1992 and married Leila Trabelsi, whom he met when he was President Habib Bourguiba's minister of the Interior. With her, he has 2 daughters (Nessrine and Halima) and a son (Mohamed Zine El Abidine, born on February 20th 2005). Leila Trabelsi has nurtured a Trabelsi Dynasty like from the ground-up.
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