Zine El Abidine Ben Ali temporarily the (presidential) duties." However, this arrangement was very short lived, because early the following day (15 January 2011) the Constitutional Court of Tunisia determined that Ben Ali was not "temporarily unable" to exercise his duties and that the presidency was in fact vacant. The arrangements he had made with the Prime Minister before leaving the country were found to be unconstitutional under article 57 of the constitution. The country's constitutional court, the highest legal authority on constitutional matters, announced the transition saying that Fouad Mebazaa (the Speaker of Parliament) had been appointed interim president. Mebazaa took the oath in
Ziad el-Doulatli Ziad el-Doulatli Ziad el-Doulatli () is a Tunisian activist affiliated with the Islamist Ennahda Movement, for which he is an executive. Ziad el-Doulati obtained his doctorate degree in pharmacology from the University of Reims in France in 1984. While there he was also head of the Union of Muslim Students. He was arrested in 1981 for his affiliation with the Islamic Action Party, now the Ennahda Movement, then immediately released. In 1987 he was sentenced to twenty years in prison, but was released after only eleven months following the ascension of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to the presidency in