Zine El Abidine Ben Ali GDP more than tripled from $1,201 in 1986 to $3,786 in 2008. Although growth in 2002 slowed to a 15-year low of 1.9% due to drought and lackluster tourism, better conditions after 2003 helped push growth to about 5% of GDP. For about 20 years after 1987, the GDP annual growth averaged nearly 5%. A report published in July 2010 by the Boston Consulting Group ("The African Challengers: Global Competitors Emerge from the Overlooked Continent") listed Tunisia as one of the African "Lions" and indicated the eight such countries account for 70% of the continent's gross domestic product. Steady increases
Qatar–Saudi Arabia diplomatic conflict Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia. Widespread Al Jazeera coverage of the Bahraini uprising of 2011 fueled Saudi suspicions the Qatari government sought to overthrow the Saudi government via soft power. The Saudis then supported a largely successful counterrevolution to the Arab Spring to preserve the monarchy of Bahrain, overthrow the Egyptian democratically-elected president Mohammad Morsi and stymie international support for the post-Gadaffi government in Libya. Since the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, there has been a consistent pattern of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt opposing the designs of