This article lists the presidents of Tunisia since the formation of the post of President of Tunisia and up till the present day.
The president of Tunisia is the head of state of Tunisia, directly elected to a five-year term by the people. The officeholder leads the executive branch of the Tunisian government along with the prime minister and is the commander-in-chief of the Tunisian Armed Forces.
Read: POLITICAL HISTORY OF TUNISIA
Since the office was established in 1957, Five men have served as president. The seventh and current president is Kais Saied since 23 October 2019. There are currently three living former presidents. The most recent former president to die was Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, on 19 September 2019.
BACKGROUND
Tunisia has had seven presidents since the proclamation of the republic on 25 July 1957:
Habib Bourguiba was appointed president by the parliament on 25 July 1957, until the election of a permanent president. After the Constitution was enacted on 1 June 1959, a presidential election was held on 8 November 1959. Being the only one running for office, he gained 91% of the votes to serve a five-year term. He was elected unopposed three more times. Shortly after winning his fourth full term, he was proclaimed president for life. He remained in office until being deposed in the coup d’état of 7 November 1987, organized by his prime minister, Ben Ali.
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was prime minister and interior minister under Bourguiba. Ben Ali had Bourguiba declared medically unfit to serve 7 November 1987. Per the constitution, he became acting president pending new elections. Ben Ali was elected unopposed for a full five-year term on 2 April 1989, and was reelected three more times (the first time unopposed). On 14 January 2011, his regime fell in the Tunisian Revolution that started on 17 December 2010. Mohamed Ghannouchi, his prime minister, claimed the presidency, serving as acting president.
Fouad Mebazaa was designated by the Constitutional Council to serve as acting president on 15 January 2011. Under Article 57 of the constitution, an election should have taken place between 45 and 60 days following Mebazaa’s appointment. But on 3 March 2011, he announced the repeal of the 1959 constitution and the election of a constituent assembly which had to draft a new one. Therefore, he remained acting president pending new elections.
Moncef Marzouki was elected president by the Tunisian Constituent Assembly on 12 December 2011. The next day, he was inaugurated, making him the first president not to be member of the ruling party. During the 2014 presidential election, he was defeated by former prime minister Caid Essebsi and left office on 31 December 2014.
Beji Caid Essebsi became the first president to be elected by universal suffrage after the revolution, on 21 December 2014. On 31 December 2014, he took office as the fifth president of Tunisia, and the first to be freely elected. He died on 25 July 2019, and was succeeded by Mohamed Ennaceur as acting president.
Mohamed Ennaceur became acting president in accordance with Articles 84 and 85 of the constitution on 25 July 2019, following the death in office of President Essebsi. Per the constitution, Ennaceur was to serve as acting president for no more than 90 days, during which an early presidential election was to be held. An election had already been scheduled for November 2019, but was brought forward to September to ensure that a new president would be sworn in before the 90-day limit.
Kais Saied was elected in September 2019. He took office on 23 October as the second president (Marzouki being the first) who was not an heir to Bourguiba’s legacy.
PRESIDENTS
| No. | Name (Birth–Death) |
Term of office | Party | Election | Notes | ||
| 1 | Habib Bourguiba (1903–2000) |
25 July 1957 – 7 November 1987 |
Neo-Destour | Interim | Parliament abolished the monarchy and designated Prime Minister Bourguiba as interim president. | ||
| 1959 | Bourguiba won the first presidential election in Tunisia’s history. | ||||||
| SDP | 1964 | Bourguiba won his second presidential term. | |||||
| 1969 | Bourguiba won his third and last presidential term according to the constitution. | ||||||
| 1974 | After this election, Bourguiba proclaimed himself president for life. | ||||||
| 2 | Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (1936–2019) |
7 November 1987 14 January 2011 |
SDP | Interim | Following the 1987 coup d’état, Prime Minister Ben Ali took office as interim president. | ||
| DCR | 1989 | Ben Ali won the first presidential election in 15 years. | |||||
| 1994 | Ben Ali won his second presidential term. | ||||||
| 1999 | Ben Ali won his third presidential term and Tunisia’s first pluralist presidential election. | ||||||
| 2004 | Ben Ali won his fourth presidential term after being allowed according to the 2002 constitutional refrendum | ||||||
| 2009 | Ben Ali won his fifth and last presidential term before being deposed. | ||||||
| 3 | Fouad Mebazaa (b. 1933) |
15 January 2011 – 13 December 2011 |
DCR | Interim | Mebazaa, as speaker of Parliament, became interim president following the removal of Ben Ali by Constitutional Council. | ||
| Independent | Mebazaa’s term was extended until the election of a constituent assembly after the constitution was repealed. | ||||||
| 4 | Moncef Marzouki (b. 1945) |
13 December 2011 – 31 December 2014 |
CFR | 2011 | Marzouki was not elected directly, but was elected temporarily by the Constituent Assembly until the next election. | ||
| 5 | Beji Caid Essebsi (1926–2019) |
31 December 2014 – 25 July 2019 † |
Nidaa Tounes | 2014 | Essebsi won the first two-round presidential election, and was the first president to die in office. | ||
| 6 | Mohamed Ennaceur (b. 1934) |
25 July 2019 – 23 October 2019 |
Nidaa Tounes | Interim | Ennaceur, as speaker of Parliament, became interim president following the death of President Beji Caid Essebsi. | ||
| 7 | Kais Saied (b. 1958) |
23 October 2019 – Incumbent |
Independent | 2019 | Saied won the first presidential election in which a presidential debate was held. | ||