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
Rached Ghannouchi was again released in 1988. He moved to the United Kingdom as a political exile, where he lived for 22 years. He attended The Islamic Committee for Palestine conference in Chicago in 1989. Following the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Al-Ghannushi denounced King Fahd of Saudi Arabia for the "colossal crime" of inviting the U.S. to deploy forces. He also called for a Muslim boycott of American goods, planes and ships. He has also been criticized for calling for jihad against Israel. Ghannouchi continued to criticise Tunisian politics and the regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Following popular unrest