The president of Tunisia, officially the president of the Republic of Tunisia (Arabic: رئيس الجمهورية التونسية Reīs ej-Jumhūrīye et-Tūnsīye), is the head of state since the creation of the position on 25 July 1957. In this capacity, he exercises executive power with the assistance of a government headed by the Prime Minister in a presidential system. According to Article 87 of the 2022 Constitution, he is the commander-in-chief of the Tunisian Armed Forces.[2] Under the Constitution, the president is elected by direct universal suffrage for a term of five years, renewable once.
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The first president of the Tunisian Republic was Habib Bourguiba,[3] who remained in power for 30 years until he was removed through the white coup of 7 November 1987,[4] by his Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who appointed himself President of the Republic, and in turn remained in power for 23 years, until his fall in The Tunisian revolution on 14 January 2011.[5] He then appointed Fouad Mebazaa as interim president, until he handed over power on 13 December 2011 to the politician Moncef Marzouki,[6] the first democratic president in the country’s history, who was elected by the Constituent Assembly.[7]
Marzouki handed over power on 31 December 2014 to his successor, Beji Caid Essebsi, who won the 2014 presidential elections,[8] thus becoming the second directly democratically elected president in the history of Tunisia, until his death on 25 July 2019,[9] with Parliament Speaker Mohamed Ennaceur assuming the presidency temporarily until presidential elections are held.[10] Bourguiba and Ben Ali also headed the ruling party, called the Neo Destour, Socialist Destourian Party then the Democratic Constitutional Rally, from independence in 1956 until the Tunisian revolution in 2011, when the President of the Republic must abandon his party status if he wins the presidency. The 2022 Tunisian constitutional referendum transformed Tunisia into a presidential republic, giving the president sweeping powers while largely limiting the role of the parliament. The current President of the Republic of Tunisia is Kais Saied, since 23 October 2019.[11]
Since the promulgation of a republican constitution in June 1959, three years after gaining independence from France, Tunisia has had just four directly elected presidents. The first president was Habib Bourguiba, who became the country's first president after the proclamation of a republic in 1957; he had been the country's de facto leader as prime minister since independence in 1956. He was formally elected to the post in 1959, and was proclaimed president for life in 1975. He was removed from office in a coup d'état in 1987 by Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after being declared medically unfit to continue in office. Ben Ali ascended as acting president, was elected in his own right in 1989 and served until 2011, when he was forced from office during an uprising against his rule. In the country's first free presidential election, held in December 2014, Beji Caid Essebsi was elected in the second round.
For most of its history as an independent state, Tunisia lacked political democracy in the Western sense, and saw widespread violations of human rights. Because of this, presidential elections in Tunisia, such as that of 2009, lacked international credibility. Elections resulted in implausibly high margins for the ruling party, the Constitutional Democratic Rally and its previous incarnations as the Neo Destour party and the Socialist Destourian Party. Prior to 1999, presidential candidates had to be endorsed by at least 30 political figures—a realistic possibility only for a candidate from a well-organized party like the RCD. Given the RCD's near-total domination of Tunisian politics, opposition candidates found it impossible to get their nomination papers signed. Even when this requirement was lifted, incumbent Ben Ali was reelected three more times by implausibly high margins; his lowest margin was 89 percent in 2009.
Tunisia's original republican constitution vested the president with sweeping executive and legislative powers. Indeed, within the context of the system, he was a virtual dictator. He was elected for a term of five years, with no term limits. In 1975, five months after winning his third full term, Bourguiba was named president for life. From 1987 to 2002, a president was limited to three five-year terms, with no more than two in a row. However, this provision was removed in June 2002. The 2014 Constitution retained the presidency as the key institution, but hedged it about with numerous checks and balances to prevent a repeat of past authoritarian excesses. Most notably, a president is limited to two five-year terms, even if they are non-successive. The Constitution explicitly forbids any amendment to increase the length of a president's term or allow him to run for more than two terms.
Under the current constitution, the president is primarily responsible for foreign policy, defense and national security, while the Head of Government (prime minister) is responsible for domestic policy.[12] Following Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's ousting in January 2011, prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi invoked article 56 of the Constitution regarding temporary absence of the president to assume the role of acting president.[13] This move was deemed unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court hours later and President of the Chamber of Deputies Fouad Mebazaa was appointed as acting president based on article 57 of the Constitution regarding permanent absence of the president. On 12 December 2011, Moncef Marzouki was elected by the newly formed Constituent Assembly as interim president of the Republic.
The president is elected by universal suffrage by majority during elections held in the last sixty days of the previous presidential term. Article 74 of the Constitution establishes that the right to presidential candidacy is open to every Tunisian national of at least 35 years of age and of Muslim faith.[14] Candidates must renounce any prior nationality upon election.[14]
Voting takes place in the form of a two round winner-take-all election. Article 75 indicates that if no candidate receives an absolute majority of the votes cast during the first round, a second round shall be held within two weeks of the announcement of the final results of the first round.[14] The two candidates having received the most votes in the first round are both presented in the second round, with the candidate receiving the most votes between the two being declared president-elect.[14] If one of the candidates on the ballot dies, a new call for candidates is made, with new election dates set within no more than 45 days; this provision does not apply to the potential withdrawal of candidates.[14] The Constitution also specifies that one may not occupy the position of president for more than two full terms, consecutive or non-consecutive, and that in the event of resignation, the term is considered to have been completed in full.[14]
