Zine El Abidine Ben Ali a case known as the "couscous connection". French television news was blocked in Tunisia during the trial. At the 1994 elections, opposition parties polled 2.25% and gained 19 of 163 seats in Parliament—the first time opposition parties had actually managed to get into the chamber. Ben Ali was unopposed for a second full term, again after being the only candidate to get enough endorsements to qualify. Turnout was officially reported at 95%. However, at this and subsequent elections, opposition parties never accounted for more than 19 percent of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies. All legislation continued to originate
Secularism in Tunisia his secularism. Following increasing economic problems, Islamist movements came about in 1970 with the revival of religious teaching in Ez-Zitouna University and the influence which came from Arab religious leaders from Syrian and Egyptian Muslim Brotherhoods. There was also influence by Hizb ut-Tahrir, whose members issued a magazine in Tunis named "Azeytouna". Government-induced secularization triggered the formation of the Islamic Tendency Movement; the movement and its leader Rached Ghannouchi turned into a rallying point for government opponents. In the aftermath, the struggle of Bourguiba and then Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who succeeded him, with political Islamists went out of