History of modern Tunisia discipline. The elections were then swept by the Neo Destour party, whose leader Habib Bourguiba became prime minister. On 25 July 1957, the monarchy was abolished, the beylical office terminated, and Tunisia proclaimed a Republic. The assembly then made Bourguiba the first president, of what would be a single-party state. The Neo Destour regime sought to run a strictly structured regime with efficient and equitable state operations, but not with democratic-style politics. In effect, Bourguiba dominated the country for the next 31 years. He governed with programs yielding stability and economic progress, repressing Islamic fundamentalism, and establishing rights for women
Habib Bourguiba ; Ahmed Mestiri, who represented the liberal faction among his party ; Mahmoud El Materi, the first president of Neo-Destour, who was discredited many times and, losing confidence in Bourguiba, decided to retire. Yet Bourguiba himself made the diagnosis of the dangers of political archaism that threatened the country. On 8 June 1970, after noting that "experience "[reveals]" that the concentration of power in the hands of an only one person, as devoted as he is, has risks", he described the great lines of the institutional reform he considered, back then. It will focus, he announced, on "amendments "[that]" will