2014 Tunisian presidential election the election, with 55.68% of the run-off vote. Protests in Tunisia began in December 2010 with riots in Sidi Bouzid after Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight in protest against the confiscation of his fruit and vegetable cart. The riots then spread across the country and continued into 2011. Days after a curfew was imposed in the capital Tunis amid continuing conflagrations, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali left the country. Ben Ali's Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi briefly took over as acting president before he handed power over to parliamentary speaker Fouad Mebazaa after the head of Tunisia's Constitutional Court, Fethi
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali living in exile in Jeddah, the same city where Idi Amin, the late dictator of Uganda, lived in exile until his death in 2003, after being removed from power in 1979, at the end of the Ugandan-Tanzanian War. Other close associates and family members who attempted to leave the country via Tunis-Carthage International Airport were prevented from doing so by the army, which had seized the airport. At about 18:00, Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi went on state television to say "Since the president is temporarily unable to exercise his duties, it has been decided that the prime minister will exercise