Fall of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali - Research Paper Example

Ben Ali was later appointed as the prime minister in October 1980. During this time the ruling president Habib Bourguiba was ill and was unable to rule the country effectively. Murphy (1999) points out that Ben Ali succeeded him in a peaceful coup that saw him in power in November, seven 1980. Elections were later held in 1989 and Ben Ali was the winner with more than 99% of the vote. During his time of reign people expected Ben Ali to take a more moderate approach especially to the religious groups (Kahana & Suwaed, 2009).

The Fall of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali Coker and Gauthier-Villars (2011) remarks that, when Ben Ali took over power he banned the Nahdah, which is a renaissance and called for the suppression of all the Islamist militants in the country. At this point in the rule of Ben Ali people started to question Ben Ali’s respect for the human rights. Ben Ali became a dictator and controlled most of the wealth in the country. Through his corrupt ways Ben Ali accumulated a lot of wealth for his family. Through the misappropriation of the states’ wealth different sectors of the economy were weakened.

Ben Ali was re-elected back in to government on several occasions toppling his opponents by a big margin. Ben Ali became a tyrant who could not listen to his advisors on matters of national importance (BBC Monitoring Middle East 2011). Hindman (2009) states that in November 2010 there were many protests in the country and many people complained on issues of poverty, unemployment, and the freedom of speech. Ben Ali believed that by suppressing the various fundamentalists groups in the country would help in counter-terrorism.

The United States of America accorded Ben Ali more Aid because of his attempts to eliminate terrorists in Tunisia. This brought about discontent among the local citizens. The government’s poor human rights record did not alter the USA’s effort in Aiding Tunisia. Tunisia’s military was offered free training and was made a member of the US State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (Wall Street Journal 2011). BBC Monitoring Middle East (2012) agrees that the fall of president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was marked by the rise of many protests in the country.

Tunisia lacked the freedom of speech and the local citizens could not air their problems freely without being arrested by state police. This made it impossible to address the underlying problems without bias and address them in the right way possible. With the president being reluctant in addressing the most urgent issues, the local citizens decided to apply all means of fighting for their rights. Protests rose in many parts of the country especially on the case of unemployment. The rising costs of living in Tunisia also prompted the local people to hold protests in fighting for their rights.

In the town of Sid Bouzid a 26 year vendor who was a university graduate refused to move his grocery stall to another area as directed by Sid Bouzid’s municipal regulation service. The municipal council took possession of the vendor’s vegetables which resulted in to the vendor burning himself. The public reacted to the munipal’s act by protesting. Riots erupted between the police and the local people with the police throwing tear gas on the masses (Boyle & Sheen 1997) Following this incident, another unemployed young man named Hussein Nagi Felhi killed himself by climbing a high voltage pole that transmitted electricity