Tunisian parliament president Mohamed Ennaceur, puts his hand on the Quran to be sworn in as Tunisian interim President in Tunis, Tunisia, Thursday, July 25, 2019. Ennaceur, the leader of Tunisia's parliament has been sworn in as the interim president of the North African country after 92-year-old President Beji Essebsi died in office. The state news agency TAP reported that Mohamed Ennaceur, president of the Assembly of People's Representatives, took the oath of office Thursday July 25, hours after Essebsi's death in the morning. (Lassad Manai/Tunisian Assembly via AP)

Tunisian parliament president Mohamed Ennaceur, puts his hand on the Quran to be sworn in as Tunisian interim President in Tunis, Tunisia, Thursday, July 25, 2019. Ennaceur, the leader of Tunisia's parliament has been sworn in as the interim president of the North African country after 92-year-old President Beji Essebsi died in office. The state news agency TAP reported that Mohamed Ennaceur, president of the Assembly of People's Representatives, took the oath of office Thursday July 25, hours after Essebsi's death in the morning. (Lassad Manai/Tunisian Assembly via AP)

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — The Latest on the death of Tunisia’s president (all times local):

7:15 p.m.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has described late Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi as “a pivotal figure” who “was instrumental in successfully steering the country through its historic and peaceful transition to democracy.”

The United Nations chief said after the death of the North African country’s first democratically elected leader that “President Essebsi was a Tunisian pioneer, an Arab and African trailblazer, and a global leader.”

Guterres said he was “deeply saddened” to learn of the president’s passing at age 92 on Thursday.

He says Essebsi will be remembered for promoting rights of Tunisian women and other citizens.

U.N. General Assembly President María Fernanda Espinosa also praised Essebsi, saying he “played a key role in promoting the consolidation of political institutions and the rule of law in his country.”

She expressed hope “that his legacy will inspire many others and contribute to further strengthen unity and stability in Tunisia.”

___

5:15 p.m.

The leader of Tunisia’s parliament has been sworn in as the interim president of the North African country after 92-year-old President Beji Essebsi died in office.

The state news agency TAP reported that Mohamed Ennaceur, president of the Assembly of People’s Representatives, took the oath of office Thursday, hours after Essebsi’s death in the morning.

According to the Tunisian constitution, the parliament chief takes over for a period of 45 to 90 days if the president is incapacitated, until new elections are organized.

Ennaceur appealed for unity in a country still struggling to stabilize its democracy after a 2011 Arab Spring uprising.

A funeral for Essebsi is planned Saturday, and the government declared seven days of mourning.

Condolences came in from other Arab countries, with Jordan and Lebanon also announcing multiple days of mourning.

___

2 p.m.

The head of Tunisia’s parliament says he is taking over as the country’s interim president after the death of 92-year-old President Beji Caid Essebsi.

The legislature’s President Mohamed Ennaceur made the announcement on state television Thursday soon after Essebsi’s death, asking Tunisians to unite and praising the former leader’s contributions.

The Tunisian constitution calls for the parliament leader to take over temporarily in case the president is incapacitated.

However the Constitutional Court is first supposed to formally confirm that the presidency is vacant, and the court doesn’t exist yet. So there is some uncertainty over the legitimacy of Ennaceur’s leadership.

The prime minister’s office announced seven days of mourning and canceled festivals and other events until further notice.

___

11:25 a.m.

Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the North African country’s first democratically elected leader, has died. He was 92.

An official in the president’s office told The Associated Press that Essebsi died Thursday morning at the Tunis military hospital, where he was taken the night before.

That was the third time in recent weeks that he had been hospitalized.

Under Tunisia’s constitution, the president of the parliament will assume the presidency for 45 to 90 days while elections are organized.

Essebsi won office in 2014 in the wake of the country’s Arab Spring uprising.

He recently announced he wouldn’t run in the election scheduled for November, saying a younger person should lead the country.

___

6:10 a.m.

Tunisian media are reporting the country’s 92-year-old president has been taken to a military hospital for the third time in recent weeks.

Radio station Mosaique and state broadcaster Wataniya have reported Beji Caid Essebsi was hospitalized Wednesday night for unspecified health trouble.

Essebsi’s office did not make an announcement or respond to requests for comment.

He is Tunisia’s first democratically elected president, having won office in 2014 in the wake of the country’s Arab Spring uprising. He recently announced he wouldn’t run in the election scheduled for November, saying a younger person should lead the country.

Essebsi was hospitalized twice in June. His office released a video of the president meeting with the defense minister Monday, and Essebsi was visibly weakened, raising concerns about his fitness for office. </s> Image copyright AFP Image caption Beji Caid Essebsi was admitted to hospital on Wednesday night

Tunisia's first freely elected President, Beji Caid Essebsi, has died aged 92, the country's presidency says.

He was the world's oldest sitting president. He was admitted to hospital on Wednesday but officials did not say why he was receiving treatment.

Essebsi won Tunisia's first free elections in 2014 following Arab uprisings across the region.

He was admitted to hospital last month after suffering what officials said was a severe health crisis.

They gave no further details at the time. But Prime Minister Youssef Chahed, who visited him in hospital, urged people to stop spreading "fake news" about his condition.

Seven days of national mourning have been declared following his death. The speaker of parliament, Mohamed Ennaceur, is to take over as interim president.

Earlier this year, MEssebsi announced that he would not stand in elections expected in November.

He told a meeting of his ruling Nidaa Tounes party that someone younger should take charge. He said it was time to "open the door to the youth".

The elections will now be held before the scheduled date on 17 November, according to the country's electoral commission.

Image copyright AFP/Getty Image caption Members of Essebsi's party had wanted him to run in the November elections

Essebsi was a former lawyer who studied and trained in the French capital Paris. During his long political career he also served as interior minister and speaker of parliament.

He rose to prominence after former Tunisian President Zine el-Abedine Ben Ali was ousted in 2011 after 23 years in office.

As president, Essebsi largely maintained stability in Tunisia. But critics said his government was too authoritarian in its response to security challenges.

Tunisia has won praise as the only democracy to emerge from the revolutions of the so-called Arab spring.

But in recent years the country has suffered attacks by Islamists and economic problems, with unemployment a persistent issue. </s> FILE – In this March 31, 2019, file photo, Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi chairs the opening session of the 30th Arab Summit in Tunis, Tunisia. Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the country’s first democratically elected leader, has died at 92, his office announced Thursday July 25, 2019. (Fethi Belaid/ Pool Photo via AP, File)

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the North African country’s first democratically elected leader and a symbol of the generation of Tunisians who shook off French rule in the 1950s, died Thursday. He was 92.

In a hasty ceremony hours after Essebsi died at a military hospital in Tunis, the leader of parliament took over as interim president. However, Essebsi’s death while still in office could lead to new power struggles in the only country to emerge from the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings with a functioning democracy and relative stability.

The government declared seven days of mourning, as condolences poured in from several Arab countries and the United Nations, A funeral is planned for Saturday.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Essebsi was “a pivotal figure” in Tunisia’s history who “was instrumental in successfully steering the country through its historic and peaceful transition to democracy.”

“President Essebsi was a Tunisian pioneer, an Arab and African trailblazer, and a global leader,” the United Nations chief said in a statement.

Heir to Tunisia’s founding father, Essebsi emerged from retirement at age 88 to win office in 2014 in the wake of the country’s Arab Spring revolt.

He presented his centrist Nida Tounes movement as a bulwark against rising Islamic fundamentalism and against the political chaos that rocked Tunisia after the “jasmine revolution” overthrew a longtime dictator and unleashed similar protests for democracy throughout the region.

Essebsi was seen as a unifying figure, but was ultimately unable to bring prosperity or lasting calm to a country beset by economic crises and fending off sporadic deadly terror attacks.

Under the Tunisian Constitution, parliament president Mohamed Ennaceur should serve as interim president for 45 to 90 days while a new election is organized.

In a brief speech after he took the oath of office, Ennaceur called on Tunisians “to strengthen your unity and solidarity so that the country can pursue its march toward progress.”

However, questions about the legitimacy of Ennaceur assuming the presidency could arise because the Constitutional Court was supposed to confirm the office was vacant. But the court itself doesn’t exist yet because lawmakers disagree over who its members should be.

Tunisia remains a haven of political openness and relative peace compared to the countries led by strongmen elsewhere in the Arab world and to the chaos reigning in neighboring Libya.

As Lebanon’s prime minister and Jordan’s royal court declared multiple days of mourning over Essebsi’s death, Syria’s government was notably silent. Demonstrations that broke out in Syria in 2011, in part inspired by Tunisia, have turned into a bloody civil war.

Most of Essebsi’s political career came well before the Arab Spring uprisings, and he outlived most of his peers in Tunisia’s independence generation.

In April, he announced he wouldn’t run in a November election, saying a younger person should lead the country instead.

Born Nov. 29, 1926, when Tunisia was a French protectorate, Essebsi entered politics in the 1940s and trained as a lawyer in Paris. But his name is most associated with Tunisia’s first president, Habib Bourguiba, who built up the country and educated its people yet brooked little opposition.

Essebsi proudly claimed to be Bourguiba’s disciple, and from 1965 to 1986, he held several senior roles including defense minister, foreign minister and interior minister.

As a supporter of openness toward more political pluralism, Essebsi occasionally clashed with Bourguiba, who was known as Tunisia’s “supreme fighter.”

After Bourguiba was overthrown in a bloodless coup by Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 1987, Essebsi left politics to be a lawyer and author, including writing a biography of Bourguiba. He was little heard from but never fully renounced his political ambitions.

Ben Ali’s fall in the Arab Spring of 2011 led to a difficult democratic transition for Tunisians. By the time Essebsi founded his own party in 2012 — already deep into his 80s — many were ready for a familiar face.

Essebsi often claimed with pride that it was the overwhelming support of Tunisian women that propelled him to power in 2014. Women in Tunisia won relatively broad rights under Bourguiba decades ago and many feared an Islamist wave would threaten those freedoms.

However, not having a majority in parliament, Essebsi had to make an alliance with Islamist party Ennahdha, which caused discontent in his party and cost him a good part of his electorate.

Essebsi also angered many of those who labored to build Tunisia’s democracy by seeking to increase presidential power, despite a landmark 2014 constitution that created a strong parliament to keep the president’s authority in check.

And he remained ever loyal to his mentor, restoring Bourguiba’s statue to the central Tunis avenue that bears his name.

But Tunisia has gone through nine governments since its 2011 uprising and each one has failed to resolve widespread poverty and unemployment, leading some to lose hope in the new democratic system.

Attacks by Islamic extremists, including some trained in neighboring Libya, have killed dozens and sent foreign tourists fleeing, damaging Tunisia’s key tourism industry.

“A democracy cannot be built in eight years,” he said in January. “Tangible results need time.”

Essebsi had hoped, before leaving office, to see a law passed giving women equal inheritance rights, overturning the current system based on Islamic Shariah law that entitles daughters to only half the inheritance given to sons. But the measure was highly controversial and drew street protests by thousands of fundamentalists, who remain a potent force.

Angela Charlton in Paris, Nadine Achoui-Lesage in Rabat, Morocco, Sarah El Deeb in Beirut and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed. </s> FILE – In this Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018 file photo Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi gestures during a press conference in Tunis. Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the country’s first democratically elected leader, has died at 92, his office announced Thursday July 25, 2019. (AP Photo/Hassene Dridi, FILE)

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — The Latest on the death of Tunisia’s president (all times local):

Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the North African country’s first democratically elected leader, has died. He was 92.

An official in the president’s office told The Associated Press that Essebsi died Thursday morning at the Tunis military hospital, where he was taken the night before.

That was the third time in recent weeks that he had been hospitalized.

Under Tunisia’s constitution, the president of the parliament will assume the presidency for 45 to 90 days while elections are organized.

Essebsi won office in 2014 in the wake of the country’s Arab Spring uprising.

He recently announced he wouldn’t run in the election scheduled for November, saying a younger person should lead the country.

Tunisian media are reporting the country’s 92-year-old president has been taken to a military hospital for the third time in recent weeks.

Radio station Mosaique and state broadcaster Wataniya have reported Beji Caid Essebsi was hospitalized Wednesday night for unspecified health trouble.

Essebsi’s office did not make an announcement or respond to requests for comment.

He is Tunisia’s first democratically elected president, having won office in 2014 in the wake of the country’s Arab Spring uprising. He recently announced he wouldn’t run in the election scheduled for November, saying a younger person should lead the country.

Essebsi was hospitalized twice in June. His office released a video of the president meeting with the defense minister Monday, and Essebsi was visibly weakened, raising concerns about his fitness for office. </s> Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the country's first democratically elected leader, has died at 92, his office says

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the country's first democratically elected leader, has died at 92, his office says. </s> Tunisia's 92-year-old president, Beji Caid Essebsi, who helped guide the North African country's transition to democracy after a 2011 revolution, has died, the presidency said on Thursday.

A leading figure in the country's fortunes since the 'Arab Spring' uprising eight years ago, Essebsi was hospitalised late last month for a week after suffering what authorities described as a severe health crisis.

'On Thursday morning, the President of the Republic died at the military hospital in Tunis...The burial ceremony will be announced later,' a presidency statement said. The prime minister declared seven days of national mourning.

Tunisia's foreign minister said a state funeral for Essebsi would be held on Saturday and the presidency urged Tunisians to unite and safeguard the nation's present and future.

The country has been hit by occasional unrest over high unemployment and by several deadly Islamist militant attacks.

The speaker of parliament, Mohamed Ennaceur, said he would become the temporary president, in line with the constitution.

The next presidential election, hitherto set for Nov. 17, will now be held earlier, the electoral commission chief said, without elaborating. A parliamentary vote is set for Oct. 6.

The coming elections will be the third set of polls in which Tunisians have been able to vote freely since the 2011 revolution.

Essebsi rose to prominence after the overthrow of veteran autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, which was followed by Arab Spring uprisings against authoritarian leaders across the Middle East, including in nearby Libya and Egypt.

Drafted in as premier in 2011 after Ben Ali was toppled, Essebsi was elected president three years later, becoming Tunisia's first directly elected head of state. He founded one of the secular parties in Tunisia's governing coalition.

'After the revolution, the president led the people to avoid confrontation, led the democratic transition and was keen to build and complete the constitutional institutions,' the presidency statement said.

Analyst Ibrahim Ouslati said the death of Essebsi, one of the world's oldest leaders, was not likely to disrupt politics.

'I don't think there will be any problem because Tunisians have a constitution that clearly shows that the speaker of the parliament occupies the position temporarily,' he said.

'Politically, there will be no problem. The political elite has enough awareness to manage it wisely like any democratic country.'

Tunisia has been hailed as the only democratic success of the Arab Spring uprisings, with a new constitution, free elections and a coalition government with secular and moderate Islamists in a region otherwise struggling with upheaval.

But political progress has not been matched by economic advances. Unemployment stands at about 15 percent, up from 12 percent in 2010, due to weak growth and low investment.

Essebsi's death comes at a time of fresh attempts to replace dictatorships with democracy in the Middle East.

The armed forces of neighbouring Algeria and Sudan ousted long-serving rulers of those countries after mass protests. But it remains unclear whether greater freedoms will result.

Rached Ghannouchi, influential leader of Tunisia's moderate Islamist Ennahda Party, which governs in coalition with two secular parties, said Essebsi was credited with leading a smooth transition to democracy by promoting inclusive politics.

Essebsi faced criticism, however, that he was seeking a return to a strong state with power concentrated in the presidency, whose role is limited to foreign and defence policies under the new constitution.

Critics also accused him of seeking a dynastic handover to his son and a retreat from post-revolution freedoms, and failing to support a truth commission seeking justice for the victims of authoritarian rule.

Essebsi, who served as a speaker of parliament under Ben Ali, denied all such accusations.

Tunisia has been spared much of the violence seen elsewhere in the Middle East since 2011, although it has been the target of militant Islamists over the years.

Government troops have been battling militant groups in remote areas near the border with Algeria, while high unemployment has also stoked disturbances in recent years. </s> Under Mr. Essebsi’s leadership, Tunisia largely avoided the fate of Arab countries that were plunged into civil war after their uprisings, such as Syria, Libya, and Yemen. But the transition has remained fragile — vulnerable to Tunisia’s fractured politics, an economy heavily dependent on tourism and the threat of deadly militant attacks.

Mr. Essebsi was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday, following another brief hospitalization last month, shortly after two suicide bombers attacked security forces in Tunis, killing one police officer and wounding eight other people. Days later, local media reports showed Mr. Essebsi leaving the hospital appearing in good health.

WASHINGTON — Beji Caid Essebsi, a fixture of Tunisia’s political establishment who became the country’s first freely elected president after its 2011 pro-democracy uprising, died Thursday in a military hospital in Tunis, the capital, according to a statement by the Tunisian presidency. He was 92.

His death on Thursday will pose a fresh test to Tunisia’s democratic credentials as the nation contends with setting up a snap election. Parliament convened following the announcement of Mr. Essebsi’s death to discuss succession and it was agreed that the president of the Legislature, Mohamed Ennaceur, will temporarily occupy the office vacated by Mr. Essebsi.

The government declared a seven-day period of mourning, while celebrating Mr. Essebsi as one of Tunisia’s greatest figures.

Rached Ghannouchi, the president of the moderate Islamist party Ennahda, paid tribute to his political rival as a ‘‘true patriot and a pillar of Tunisia’s democratic transition.’’

‘‘He would have wanted all Tunisians to uphold the Constitution and rule of law and to maintain our democratic path, no matter what challenges we face,’’ Ghannouchi said in a statement.

Mr. Essebsi was first appointed as Tunisia’s interim leader after nationwide protests ended the 23-year dictatorship of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011. He was later elected president in the nation’s first free and fair elections in 2014.

He was not a fresh face. Mr. Essebsi had served in various posts, including foreign minister, under Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia’s first post-independence leader, and as head of the Parliament under Ben Ali. Some viewed that experience as useful with the country still reeling from revolution, at a time when Tunisia was unsettled by protests, political assassinations, and terrorist attacks.

But for others, Mr. Essebsi was a symbol of the old autocratic establishment: aligned with other regional authoritarian leaders who were seeking to contain pro-democracy sentiments in the region, and indifferent, at best, to popular demands that officials from previous governments face justice for their alleged crimes.

After he was elected president, he detailed his priorities in a column written for The Washington Post. ‘‘We must solve the daunting economic and social problems that began in the Ben Ali era and were aggravated by three years of incompetent Islamist administration,’’ he wrote. ‘‘We must establish security in a country surrounded by insecurity. And we must strengthen our young democracy at a time when hopes for democracy elsewhere in the region are failing to take root.’’

After briefly holding the post of prime minister in the wake of Ben Ali’s ouster, Mr. Essebsi stepped down in December 2011 after the newly elected Islamist-led assembly chose Moncef Marzouki as president.

Mr. Essebsi then founded a political party, Nidaa Tounes, in 2012 largely as a counterweight to Ennahda, the Islamist party that quickly ascended from the most heavily repressed group under the old regime to become Tunisia’s most powerful political group.

Nidaa Tounes attracted an array of secular-minded Tunisians hoping to challenge Ennahda’s rise. The rival parties dominated the Tunisian political scene for several years after Mr. Essebsi’s 2014 victory, forming an uneasy governing coalition in Parliament that ultimately splintered in September.

Mr. Essebsi appealed to Bourguiba’s legacy during his 2014 campaign, casting himself in the mold of a secularist reformer and portraying his Islamist rivals as extremists out of step with Tunisia’s cosmopolitan character.

As president, he pursued several gender-equality initiatives that challenged religious orthodoxy, including an order he issued in 2017 allowing Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men.

But critics said those moves masked Mr. Essebsi’s efforts to undermine accountability for crimes in the Bourguiba and Ben Ali eras. Mr. Essebsi spearheaded an ‘‘economic reconciliation’’ law passed in 2017 that granted conditional amnesty to former regime figures accused of corruption.

Mr. Essebsi himself faced scrutiny for his role in authoritarian abuses. A truth commission appointed to investigate and bring to light the human rights violations of Tunisia’s authoritarian regimes accused him of committing crimes while serving in Bourguiba’s government.

Specifically, its final report alleged that Mr. Essebsi oversaw mass arrests and unfair trials of political dissidents in the early 1960s in the wake of a failed coup attempt. The report also described him as complicit in the torture of prisoners while he was interior minister from 1965 to 1969.

Mr. Essebsi repeatedly dismissed the truth commission, saying he was ‘‘against settling the scores of the past.’’ His administration denied the group access to national archives, and parliamentary deputies from Mr. Essebsi’s party sought to obstruct its work.

When the truth commission released its final report in March, it called on Mr. Essebsi to offer an official state apology for more than 62,000 cases of human rights violations it chronicled between 1955 and 2013. Mr. Essebsi did not heed that call. </s> Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the country’s first freely and democratically elected president, died Thursday aged 92. A champion of equal rights for women, Essebsi sought to reconcile secularist beliefs with Sharia law.

The 92-year-old Essebsi died in hospital, where he had been admitted into intensive care with a severe illness.

The veteran Tunisian politician was the world’s oldest head of state after Queen Elizabeth and Malaysian President Mahathir Mohamad.

He was elected the fourth president of Tunisia on December 31, 2014, three years after the Arab Spring uprising ousted the long-serving dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

On April 6, 2019, Essebsi announced he would not be seeking a second term in the forthcoming November elections, explaining that it was time to “open the door to the youth”. This announcement came on the heels of protests in neighbouring Algeria, which resulted in President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s April 2 resignation and the end of his 20-year rule.

Essebsi showed political leanings early on. Born on November 29, 1926 in Sidi Bou Said to a well-heeled Tunisian family, at the age of 12 he was heavily influenced by the violent riots of April 9, 1938, in which 21 Tunisians died in the name of reforms to end France’s sphere of influence in Tunisia.

Later, Essebsi would become active in the socialist, pro-independence Néo-Destour party. Its leader and founder Habib Bourguiba was a vocal advocate for the removal of French rule who had been instrumental in the April 9 protests. While studying law in Paris, he became a great admirer of Bourguiba’s teachings, which formed Essebsi’s beliefs in Tunisian independence from French rule.

His first political forays could be traced back to his Parisian student years; he became vice president of the Association of North-African Muslim Students, as well as an active member of the resistance against French colonial rule.

Essebsi returned to Tunis after completing his studies and embarked on a legal career. After Tunisia’s independence in 1956, Essebsi truly came into his own politically.

When his idol Habib Bourguiba became president of Tunisia in 1957, Essebsi was appointed director of national security. He rose through the ranks to hold several prominent positions, including minister of the interior and minister of defence.

He briefly served as ambassador to France in 1970 before returning to a law career. In 1981, he re-entered Tunisian politics with his appointment as minister of foreign affairs before taking up the post of ambassador to West Germany in 1987.

A coup d’état on November 7, 1987 saw Bourguiba replaced by his own prime minister, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Under the latter’s rule, Essebsi continued to serve at high levels of government, including posts as minister of the interior and president of the Tunisian national assembly.

After the Arab Spring of 2011, Essebsi became interim prime minister on February 27 of that year, leaving the post on December 24 to be replaced by Hamadi Jebali.

In 2012, he formed his own political party, Nidaa Tounes -- a diverse party made up of business leaders, intellectuals, unionists, and leftist militants as well as members of the old regime who were allied with the Islamist Ennahdha movement. In 2014, just two years after the party’s creation, Nidaa Tounes swept the legislative elections, which paved the way for Essebsi to run for president.

Playing off his image as a wise elder, he defeated incumbent Moncef Markouzi to become the nation’s fourth president, and its first democratically elected one. Essebsi led Tunisia towards numerous reforms, including gender equality and election reform. His death leaves the presidency vacant at a time of increasing tensions for Tunisia. </s> Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi has died at the age of 92. He was the country's first democratically elected leader, coming to power in the wake of the Arab Spring revolution. Essebsi was admitted to a hospital in Tunisia on Wednesday, but officials haven't specified what he was receiving treatment for.

Announcing the leader's death, Tunisia's presidential Facebook page said funeral plans for Essebsi would be announced soon.

Essebsi helped bring stability to Tunisia after a series of street demonstrations ousted former President Zine el-Abedine Ben Ali in 2011. Tunisia is the only democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring — the public protests that spread to other countries in North Africa and Middle East.

"As leader, he relaxed a sweeping inheritance law to improve equality between men and women, and called for Tunisian women to be able to marry non-Muslims," NPR's Ruth Sherlock reports for our Newscast unit. 

 

Earlier this year, Essebsi said he would not run for office again, saying it was time for younger people to step up. Tunisia is scheduled to hold a new election in November.

In Tunisia's reformed government, Essebsi served as interim prime minister before being elected president in 2014. By then, he had already had a long political career, serving for decades under Ben Ali. As NPR's Scott Neuman reported on his election, "Essebsi's support comes from the wealthy coastal regions and he has used his experience and the prospect of stability to woo voters."

Essebsi led the secular-leaning Nidaa Tounes (Tunisia Calls) party. The Associated Press reports that in the lead-up to his election, Essebsi presented "his centrist movement as a bulwark against rising Islamic fundamentalism and political chaos that rocked Tunisia after the people's revolt overthrew a longtime dictator and unleashed similar movements throughout the region."

After taking up politics in the 1940s, Essebsi later joined the fight for de-colonization.

He served under Tunisia's first president, Habib Bourguiba, who took power after the country gained independence from France. Essebsi held several senior roles under Bourguiba, including director of security, minister of defense, foreign minister and interior minister.

After retiring from politics in 1994, Essebsi returned to help lead the government in 2011.

Essebsi's reputation took a hit in the wake of the Arab Spring, when Tunisia's Truth and Dignity Commission released its tally of abuses under years of authoritarian rule. He was accused of human rights violations related to the put-down of a coup attempt in 1963, as The New York Times has reported.

The International Center for Transitional Justice said the commission's report referenced Essebsi's tenure as minister of the interior "when torture was rampant."

As president, Essebsi's tenure ushered in political openness and freedom of speech, but he was unable to ease Tunisia's economic problems, which sparked new protests. Earlier this year Essebsi said, "A democracy cannot be built in eight years. Tangible results need time," according to the AP.

In 2018, NPR's Sherlock reported from Tunisia, "One thing everyone does agree on is that freedom of expression is the main reward of the 2011 revolution," but by then, economic problems were prompting strikes and protests.

As Sherlock said in that story, new tensions over poverty, unemployment and other social issues gave rise to a new movement led by young people. In English, Sherlock said, the group's name translates to "What are we waiting for?" </s> Beji Caid Essebsi, a fixture of Tunisia’s political establishment who became the country’s first freely elected president after the 2011 pro-democracy uprising, died on Thursday in a military hospital in Tunis, the capital, according to a statement by the Tunisian presidency. He was 92 years old.

Essebsi was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday, following another brief hospitalization last month, shortly after two suicide bombers attacked police in Tunis, killing at least one police officer, according to the Interior Ministry.

Under Essebsi’s leadership, Tunisia largely avoided the fate of Arab countries that were plunged into civil war after their uprisings, such as Syria, Libya and Yemen. But the transition has remained fragile — vulnerable to Tunisia’s fractured politics, an economy heavily dependent on tourism and the threat of deadly militant attacks.

Essebsi was appointed as Tunisia’s interim leader after nationwide protests ended the 23-year dictatorship of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011. He was elected president in 2014.

He was not a fresh face. Essebsi had served various posts, including foreign minister, under Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia’s first post-independence leader, and as head of the parliament under Ben Ali. Some viewed that experience as useful with the country still reeling from revolution, at a time when Tunisia was unsettled by protests, political assassinations and terrorist attacks.

[Tunisia feared the return of militants from abroad. The threat now is those who never left.]

But for others, Essebsi was a symbol of the old autocratic establishment: aligned with other regional authoritarian leaders who were seeking to contain pro-democracy sentiments in the region, and indifferent, at best, to the popular demands that officials from previous governments face justice for their alleged crimes.

After he was elected president, he detailed his priorities in an column written for the The Washington Post. “We must solve the daunting economic and social problems that began in the Ben Ali era and were aggravated by three years of incompetent Islamist administration,” he wrote. “We must establish security in a country surrounded by insecurity. And we must strengthen our young democracy at a time when hopes for democracy elsewhere in the region are failing to take root.”

After briefly holding the post of prime minister in the wake of Ben Ali’s ouster, Essebsi stepped down in December 2011 after the newly elected Islamist-led assembly chose Moncef Marzouki as president.

Essebsi then founded a political party, Nidaa Tounes, in 2012 largely as a counterweight to Ennahda, the Islamist party that quickly ascended from the most heavily repressed group under the old regime to become Tunisia’s most powerful political group.

Nidaa Tounes attracted an array of secular-minded Tunisians hoping to challenge Ennahda’s rise. The rival parties dominated the Tunisian political scene for several years after Essebsi’s 2014 victory, forming an uneasy governing coalition in parliament that ultimately splintered in September.

Essebsi appealed to Bourguiba’s legacy during his 2014 campaign, casting himself in the mold of a secularist reformer and casting his Islamist rivals as extremists out of step with Tunisia’s cosmopolitan character.

As president, he pursued several gender equality initiatives that challenged religious orthodoxy, including an order he issued in 2017 allowing Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men.

But critics said those moves masked Essebsi’s efforts to undermine accountability for Bourguiba- and Ben Ali-era crimes. Essebsi spearheaded an “economic reconciliation” law passed in 2017 that granted conditional amnesty to former regime figures accused of corruption.

Essebsi himself faced scrutiny for his role in authoritarian abuses. A truth commission appointed to investigate and bring to light the human rights violations of Tunisia’s authoritarian regimes accused Essebsi of committing crimes while serving in Bourguiba’s government.

Specifically, its final report alleged Essebsi oversaw mass arrests and unfair trials of political dissidents in the early 1960s in the wake of a failed coup attempt. The report also described him as complicit in the torture of prisoners while he was interior minister from 1965 to 1969.

Essebsi repeatedly dismissed the truth commission saying he was “against settling the scores of the past.” His administration denied the group access to national archives and parliamentary deputies from Essebsi’s party sought to obstruct its work.

When the truth commission released its final report in March, it called on Essebsi to offer an official state apology for more than 62,000 cases of human rights violations it chronicled between 1955 and 2013. Essebsi did not heed that call.

It was unclear who will succeed him. Tunisia’s constitution, ratified in 2014, permits the president to delegate his or her duties to the head of government for 30 days if temporarily incapacitated. If the president is unable to do so, the constitution stipulates that the country’s Constitutional Court should convene and declare the office of the presidency vacant. But Tunisia does not yet have a Constitutional Court.

Four years after the new democracy was supposed to have set up the court, parliamentary squabbling over its composition has delayed its establishment. Without it, the process for appointing a presidential successor remains unclear — and some experts warn that Essebsi’s death could usher in a constitutional crisis.

Sharan Grewal, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, said a legal loophole could stave off such a scenario. A temporary judicial body created in 2014 as a placeholder for a constitutional court is still operating, he said, and the parliament could pass a law granting it the power to declare the presidency vacant.

“I think you would avoid the constitutional crisis if you just amend the law in this way, and I think that is the most likely scenario,” he said. “I don’t think anyone has an interest in creating a constitutional crisis at this moment.”

The 2014 constitution indicates that after the presidency is declared vacant, the prime minister would take over for up to 60 days. If Tunisia reaches this step, that means Prime Minister Youssef Chahed will temporarily occupy the presidential seat in Carthage.

Chahed, who has served as prime minister since 2016, recently became one of Essebsi’s chief political rivals after breaking with Essebsi’s Nidaa Tounes party last year. Chahed now leads a new party, Tahya Tounes, composed of like-minded Nidaa Tounes defectors. Speculation has abounded that Chahed has been mulling a presidential run ahead of the upcoming election in November.

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The 92-year-old and first freely-elected President of Tunisia, Beji Caid Essebsi, dies. Tunisian parliament President Mohamed Ennaceur takes the role of interim president.