Zine El Abidine Ben Ali temporarily the (presidential) duties." However, this arrangement was very short lived, because early the following day (15 January 2011) the Constitutional Court of Tunisia determined that Ben Ali was not "temporarily unable" to exercise his duties and that the presidency was in fact vacant. The arrangements he had made with the Prime Minister before leaving the country were found to be unconstitutional under article 57 of the constitution. The country's constitutional court, the highest legal authority on constitutional matters, announced the transition saying that Fouad Mebazaa (the Speaker of Parliament) had been appointed interim president. Mebazaa took the oath in
Aftermath of the Bahraini uprising (July–December 2011) into Manama with their cars on 21 September. Protesters managed to slow traffic to a crawl during rush hour but the protest was largely unsuccessful, with delays at the time not noticeably different from normal rush-hour waits. Addressing an opposition rally in Tubli, a village south of Manama, Sheikh Ali Salman, head of the Al Wefaq party said, "when we talk about democracy we want democracy like that of Westminster, France, and America, not the democracy of Saddam Hussein, nor the democracy of Zine El Abidine, nor the democracy of Gadhafi." The 14 February Youth Coalition planned protests on 23