Beji Caid Essebsi: Tunisian president who oversaw country’s transition to democracy

Beji Caid Essebsi was Tunisia’s first freely elected president, leading the country through its transition to democracy after the 2011 revolution that provoked the Arab Spring protests against authoritarian leaders across the Middle East and north Africa.

Essebsi, who has died aged 92, governed during a testing time in the history of the north African country, which has been beset by economic crises and vulnerable to sporadic terrorist attacks, despite often considered the lone success of the Arab Spring uprisings. Essebsi’s resounding legacy is the orderly transfer of power in place that means Tunisians will elect a new democratic leader in September.

He was born in 1926 in Sidi Bou Said, a picturesque town in northern Tunisia 20km from the capital Tunis, into an elite family of Sardinian origin. His great-grandfather was Ismail Caid Essebsi, a Sardinian kidnapped off the coast of Ottoman Tunisia by Barbary corsairs – Ottoman and Berber pirates and privateers who operated in the Mediterranean coast of north Africa, known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, a centre of piracy against European shipping from 16th to 19th century. Ismail was raised with the ruling family and became a Mamluk leader – Mamluks were non-Muslim slaves purchased in Ottoman markets that were educated in government service, converted to Islam and given high-ranking official posts. Ismail was recognised as a free man once he became an important member of the government.

Essebsi’s first involvement in politics came in 1941, when he joined the Tunisian nationalist Neo Destour political party’s youth organisation. In 1950, he went to Paris to study law and returned to begin his career as a lawyer defending Neo Destour activists. Essebsi became adviser to Tunisia’s leader Habib Bourguiba following the country’s independence from France in 1956. He held various other posts from 1957 until 1971 when he resigned as ambassador to France and distanced himself from Bourguiba on account of the latter’s refusal to democratise his Socialist Destourian Party. Essebsi published the reasons for his departure from office in Le Monde, which is the only time he voiced any public opposition to Tunisia’s sometimes questionable ruling regime during his career.

He returned to government to serve as minister of foreign affairs from 1981 to 1986, and as president of the Chamber of Deputies, 1990-91. However, it was not until after the overthrow of veteran autocratic president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011 that Essebsi rose to prominence. He was initially drafted in as prime minister, where he helped write a new constitution to ensure fundamental rights such as freedom of speech and prepare Tunisia for free and fair elections.

The following year he founded the secular Nidaa Tounes party, which describes itself as a modern social democratic party of the moderate left. Two years later, on 31 December 2014, Essebsi became Tunisia’s first freely elected head of state.

On assuming the presidency, Essebsi co-brokered a historic power-sharing deal between his Nidaa Tounes movement and moderate Islamist party Ennahda. Tunisia was lauded for this alliance, which helped to bring stability to the country, while other parts of the region struggled with conflict and unrest. However, it meant that with more than 80 per cent of the parliament in the ruling coalition, there was no real opposition to exert checks on the government. The government was therefore able to pass a series of laws that were widely criticised by civil society organisations for regressing on human rights. Essebsi announced the end of the four-year coalition in September 2018.

In the past two years Essebsi has been instrumental in codifying new laws that criminalise violence against women, establish equality between men and women in inheritance and allow women to marry non-Muslims. These bills have been met with celebration from liberals but extreme resistance from religious conservatives including the Ennahda party formerly allied to Essebsi’s party.

After Essebsi was admitted to hospital in May, concerned politicians and social media users demanded increased transparency about his health. Despite his party’s calls in June for him to stand again, he announced he would not run in the election scheduled for November, saying a younger person should lead the country. Following his death, parliament speaker Mohamed Ennaceur was sworn in as interim president. Tunisia’s second democratic presidential election has been announced for 15 September, two months earlier than scheduled.

Essebsi is survived by his wife Chadlia Saida Farhat and four children.

Beji Caid Essebsi, president of Tunisia, born 29 November 1926, died 25 July 2019