Zine El Abidine Ben Ali favoured the latter. In conformity with Article 57 of the Tunisian Constitution, the peaceful transition occurred. The country had faced 10% inflation, external debt accounting for 46% of GDP and a debt service ratio of 21% of GDP. In 1999 Fulvio Martini, former head of Italian military secret service SISMI, declared to a parliamentary committee that "In 1985–1987 we organized a kind of "golpe" in Tunisia, putting president Ben Ali as head of state, replacing Burghiba (the Italian spelling of the name) who wanted to flee". Bourguiba, although a symbol of anti-colonial resistance, was considered incapable of leading his country
Hassib Ben Ammar "Democracy", as a published medium for the opposition Movement of Socialist Democrats, becoming the publication's director. The opposition party was at this time illegal and he found himself confronted by the authorities with more than twenty legal cases. In December 1987, a few weeks after President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali came to power, Ben Ammar closed down Erraï. Sources close to the newspaper claimed that the new President was enraged by the publication of an article by Oum Zied entitled "The drift towards authoritarianism of the Ben Ali régime," banned the edition containing the article and launched a campaign