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
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali a military court on April 2013 for violent repression of protests in Sfax. Ben Ali was born in 1936 to moderate-income parents as the fourth of eleven children in the family. His father, Selma Hassen, worked as a guard at the port city of Sousse. He joined the local resistance against French colonial forces and was imprisoned. His expulsion from secondary school was the reason why he never completed his secondary education. He studied at the Sousse Technical Institute but failed to earn a professional certificate and joined the newly formed Tunisian Army in 1958. Nevertheless, after being chosen as