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
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