Zine El Abidine Ben Ali Interior Minister on 28 April 1986 then Prime Minister by President Habib Bourguiba in October 1987. On 7 November 1987, doctors attending to Bourguiba filed an official medical report declaring him medically incapacitated and unable to fulfill the duties of the presidency. Ben Ali, as the next in line to the presidency, removed Bourguiba from office and assumed the presidency himself. The day of his accession to power was celebrated annually in Tunisia as New Era Day. Two of the names given to Ben Ali's rise to the presidency include "the medical coup d'état" and the "Tunisian revolution". Ben Ali
Hatem Ben Salem Hatem Ben Salem Hatem Ben Salem is a Tunisian politician. He was the Minister of Education under former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Hatem Ben Salem was born on February 8, 1956. He received a PhD in Law from the University of Paris and the agrégation from the University of Tunis. From 1996 to 2000, he was the Tunisian Ambassador to Senegal, then Guinea, Gambia, Cap Vert, Turkey, and then to the United Nations in Geneva. He is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg. He