President of Tunisia may in exceptional circumstances put certain draft laws to a referendum. Article 87 specifies that the president enjoys legal immunity while in office. Since the promulgation of a republican constitution in June 1959, three years after gaining independence from France, Tunisia has had just three 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.
Early political career of Habib Bourguiba November 1973, Bourguiba related the events of his beginnings in journalism and the success of his articles: The preponderants were successful in their attempts to silence the nationalist papers as the colonial administration censored "An-Nahdha", the daily paper of the reformist party and the weekly "Ez-Zohra", on May 12, 1931. Within days, Habib and M'hamed Bourguiba, Bahri Guiga, Salah Farhat and Mahmoud El Materi were sued. Chedli Khalledi, a member of the Destour party, alerted Marius Moutet and Gaston Bergery, chief of staff to Édouard Herriot, who were friends of the nationalists and had influence in Paris. Bergery quickly interfered,