Tunisian parliament president Mohamed Ennaceur, puts his hand on the Quran to be sworn in as Tunisian interim President in Tunis, Tunisia, Thursday, July 25, 2019. Ennaceur, the leader of Tunisia's parliament has been sworn in as the interim president of the North African country after 92-year-old President Beji Essebsi died in office. The state news agency TAP reported that Mohamed Ennaceur, president of the Assembly of People's Representatives, took the oath of office Thursday July 25, hours after Essebsi's death in the morning. (Lassad Manai/Tunisian Assembly via AP)

Tunisian parliament president Mohamed Ennaceur, puts his hand on the Quran to be sworn in as Tunisian interim President in Tunis, Tunisia, Thursday, July 25, 2019. Ennaceur, the leader of Tunisia's parliament has been sworn in as the interim president of the North African country after 92-year-old President Beji Essebsi died in office. The state news agency TAP reported that Mohamed Ennaceur, president of the Assembly of People's Representatives, took the oath of office Thursday July 25, hours after Essebsi's death in the morning. (Lassad Manai/Tunisian Assembly via AP)

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — The Latest on the death of Tunisia’s president (all times local):

7:15 p.m.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has described late Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi as “a pivotal figure” who “was instrumental in successfully steering the country through its historic and peaceful transition to democracy.”

The United Nations chief said after the death of the North African country’s first democratically elected leader that “President Essebsi was a Tunisian pioneer, an Arab and African trailblazer, and a global leader.”

Guterres said he was “deeply saddened” to learn of the president’s passing at age 92 on Thursday.

He says Essebsi will be remembered for promoting rights of Tunisian women and other citizens.

U.N. General Assembly President María Fernanda Espinosa also praised Essebsi, saying he “played a key role in promoting the consolidation of political institutions and the rule of law in his country.”

She expressed hope “that his legacy will inspire many others and contribute to further strengthen unity and stability in Tunisia.”

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5:15 p.m.

The leader of Tunisia’s parliament has been sworn in as the interim president of the North African country after 92-year-old President Beji Essebsi died in office.

The state news agency TAP reported that Mohamed Ennaceur, president of the Assembly of People’s Representatives, took the oath of office Thursday, hours after Essebsi’s death in the morning.

According to the Tunisian constitution, the parliament chief takes over for a period of 45 to 90 days if the president is incapacitated, until new elections are organized.

Ennaceur appealed for unity in a country still struggling to stabilize its democracy after a 2011 Arab Spring uprising.

A funeral for Essebsi is planned Saturday, and the government declared seven days of mourning.

Condolences came in from other Arab countries, with Jordan and Lebanon also announcing multiple days of mourning.

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2 p.m.

The head of Tunisia’s parliament says he is taking over as the country’s interim president after the death of 92-year-old President Beji Caid Essebsi.

The legislature’s President Mohamed Ennaceur made the announcement on state television Thursday soon after Essebsi’s death, asking Tunisians to unite and praising the former leader’s contributions.

The Tunisian constitution calls for the parliament leader to take over temporarily in case the president is incapacitated.

However the Constitutional Court is first supposed to formally confirm that the presidency is vacant, and the court doesn’t exist yet. So there is some uncertainty over the legitimacy of Ennaceur’s leadership.

The prime minister’s office announced seven days of mourning and canceled festivals and other events until further notice.

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11:25 a.m.

Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the North African country’s first democratically elected leader, has died. He was 92.

An official in the president’s office told The Associated Press that Essebsi died Thursday morning at the Tunis military hospital, where he was taken the night before.

That was the third time in recent weeks that he had been hospitalized.

Under Tunisia’s constitution, the president of the parliament will assume the presidency for 45 to 90 days while elections are organized.

Essebsi won office in 2014 in the wake of the country’s Arab Spring uprising.

He recently announced he wouldn’t run in the election scheduled for November, saying a younger person should lead the country.

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6:10 a.m.

Tunisian media are reporting the country’s 92-year-old president has been taken to a military hospital for the third time in recent weeks.

Radio station Mosaique and state broadcaster Wataniya have reported Beji Caid Essebsi was hospitalized Wednesday night for unspecified health trouble.

Essebsi’s office did not make an announcement or respond to requests for comment.

He is Tunisia’s first democratically elected president, having won office in 2014 in the wake of the country’s Arab Spring uprising. He recently announced he wouldn’t run in the election scheduled for November, saying a younger person should lead the country.

Essebsi was hospitalized twice in June. His office released a video of the president meeting with the defense minister Monday, and Essebsi was visibly weakened, raising concerns about his fitness for office. </s> Image copyright AFP Image caption Beji Caid Essebsi was admitted to hospital on Wednesday night

Tunisia's first freely elected President, Beji Caid Essebsi, has died aged 92, the country's presidency says.

He was the world's oldest sitting president. He was admitted to hospital on Wednesday but officials did not say why he was receiving treatment.

Essebsi won Tunisia's first free elections in 2014 following Arab uprisings across the region.

He was admitted to hospital last month after suffering what officials said was a severe health crisis.

They gave no further details at the time. But Prime Minister Youssef Chahed, who visited him in hospital, urged people to stop spreading "fake news" about his condition.

Seven days of national mourning have been declared following his death. The speaker of parliament, Mohamed Ennaceur, is to take over as interim president.

Earlier this year, MEssebsi announced that he would not stand in elections expected in November.

He told a meeting of his ruling Nidaa Tounes party that someone younger should take charge. He said it was time to "open the door to the youth".

The elections will now be held before the scheduled date on 17 November, according to the country's electoral commission.

Image copyright AFP/Getty Image caption Members of Essebsi's party had wanted him to run in the November elections

Essebsi was a former lawyer who studied and trained in the French capital Paris. During his long political career he also served as interior minister and speaker of parliament.

He rose to prominence after former Tunisian President Zine el-Abedine Ben Ali was ousted in 2011 after 23 years in office.

As president, Essebsi largely maintained stability in Tunisia. But critics said his government was too authoritarian in its response to security challenges.

Tunisia has won praise as the only democracy to emerge from the revolutions of the so-called Arab spring.

But in recent years the country has suffered attacks by Islamists and economic problems, with unemployment a persistent issue. </s> Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the country's first democratically elected leader, has died at 92, his office says

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the country's first democratically elected leader, has died at 92, his office says. </s> FILE – In this March 31, 2019, file photo, Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi chairs the opening session of the 30th Arab Summit in Tunis, Tunisia. Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the country’s first democratically elected leader, has died at 92, his office announced Thursday July 25, 2019. (Fethi Belaid/ Pool Photo via AP, File)

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the North African country’s first democratically elected leader and a symbol of the generation of Tunisians who shook off French rule in the 1950s, died Thursday. He was 92.

In a hasty ceremony hours after Essebsi died at a military hospital in Tunis, the leader of parliament took over as interim president. However, Essebsi’s death while still in office could lead to new power struggles in the only country to emerge from the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings with a functioning democracy and relative stability.

The government declared seven days of mourning, as condolences poured in from several Arab countries and the United Nations, A funeral is planned for Saturday.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Essebsi was “a pivotal figure” in Tunisia’s history who “was instrumental in successfully steering the country through its historic and peaceful transition to democracy.”

“President Essebsi was a Tunisian pioneer, an Arab and African trailblazer, and a global leader,” the United Nations chief said in a statement.

Heir to Tunisia’s founding father, Essebsi emerged from retirement at age 88 to win office in 2014 in the wake of the country’s Arab Spring revolt.

He presented his centrist Nida Tounes movement as a bulwark against rising Islamic fundamentalism and against the political chaos that rocked Tunisia after the “jasmine revolution” overthrew a longtime dictator and unleashed similar protests for democracy throughout the region.

Essebsi was seen as a unifying figure, but was ultimately unable to bring prosperity or lasting calm to a country beset by economic crises and fending off sporadic deadly terror attacks.

Under the Tunisian Constitution, parliament president Mohamed Ennaceur should serve as interim president for 45 to 90 days while a new election is organized.

In a brief speech after he took the oath of office, Ennaceur called on Tunisians “to strengthen your unity and solidarity so that the country can pursue its march toward progress.”

However, questions about the legitimacy of Ennaceur assuming the presidency could arise because the Constitutional Court was supposed to confirm the office was vacant. But the court itself doesn’t exist yet because lawmakers disagree over who its members should be.

Tunisia remains a haven of political openness and relative peace compared to the countries led by strongmen elsewhere in the Arab world and to the chaos reigning in neighboring Libya.

As Lebanon’s prime minister and Jordan’s royal court declared multiple days of mourning over Essebsi’s death, Syria’s government was notably silent. Demonstrations that broke out in Syria in 2011, in part inspired by Tunisia, have turned into a bloody civil war.

Most of Essebsi’s political career came well before the Arab Spring uprisings, and he outlived most of his peers in Tunisia’s independence generation.

In April, he announced he wouldn’t run in a November election, saying a younger person should lead the country instead.

Born Nov. 29, 1926, when Tunisia was a French protectorate, Essebsi entered politics in the 1940s and trained as a lawyer in Paris. But his name is most associated with Tunisia’s first president, Habib Bourguiba, who built up the country and educated its people yet brooked little opposition.

Essebsi proudly claimed to be Bourguiba’s disciple, and from 1965 to 1986, he held several senior roles including defense minister, foreign minister and interior minister.

As a supporter of openness toward more political pluralism, Essebsi occasionally clashed with Bourguiba, who was known as Tunisia’s “supreme fighter.”

After Bourguiba was overthrown in a bloodless coup by Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 1987, Essebsi left politics to be a lawyer and author, including writing a biography of Bourguiba. He was little heard from but never fully renounced his political ambitions.

Ben Ali’s fall in the Arab Spring of 2011 led to a difficult democratic transition for Tunisians. By the time Essebsi founded his own party in 2012 — already deep into his 80s — many were ready for a familiar face.

Essebsi often claimed with pride that it was the overwhelming support of Tunisian women that propelled him to power in 2014. Women in Tunisia won relatively broad rights under Bourguiba decades ago and many feared an Islamist wave would threaten those freedoms.

However, not having a majority in parliament, Essebsi had to make an alliance with Islamist party Ennahdha, which caused discontent in his party and cost him a good part of his electorate.

Essebsi also angered many of those who labored to build Tunisia’s democracy by seeking to increase presidential power, despite a landmark 2014 constitution that created a strong parliament to keep the president’s authority in check.

And he remained ever loyal to his mentor, restoring Bourguiba’s statue to the central Tunis avenue that bears his name.

But Tunisia has gone through nine governments since its 2011 uprising and each one has failed to resolve widespread poverty and unemployment, leading some to lose hope in the new democratic system.

Attacks by Islamic extremists, including some trained in neighboring Libya, have killed dozens and sent foreign tourists fleeing, damaging Tunisia’s key tourism industry.

“A democracy cannot be built in eight years,” he said in January. “Tangible results need time.”

Essebsi had hoped, before leaving office, to see a law passed giving women equal inheritance rights, overturning the current system based on Islamic Shariah law that entitles daughters to only half the inheritance given to sons. But the measure was highly controversial and drew street protests by thousands of fundamentalists, who remain a potent force.

Angela Charlton in Paris, Nadine Achoui-Lesage in Rabat, Morocco, Sarah El Deeb in Beirut and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed. </s> FILE – In this Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018 file photo Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi gestures during a press conference in Tunis. Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the country’s first democratically elected leader, has died at 92, his office announced Thursday July 25, 2019. (AP Photo/Hassene Dridi, FILE)

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — The Latest on the death of Tunisia’s president (all times local):

Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the North African country’s first democratically elected leader, has died. He was 92.

An official in the president’s office told The Associated Press that Essebsi died Thursday morning at the Tunis military hospital, where he was taken the night before.

That was the third time in recent weeks that he had been hospitalized.

Under Tunisia’s constitution, the president of the parliament will assume the presidency for 45 to 90 days while elections are organized.

Essebsi won office in 2014 in the wake of the country’s Arab Spring uprising.

He recently announced he wouldn’t run in the election scheduled for November, saying a younger person should lead the country.

Tunisian media are reporting the country’s 92-year-old president has been taken to a military hospital for the third time in recent weeks.

Radio station Mosaique and state broadcaster Wataniya have reported Beji Caid Essebsi was hospitalized Wednesday night for unspecified health trouble.

Essebsi’s office did not make an announcement or respond to requests for comment.

He is Tunisia’s first democratically elected president, having won office in 2014 in the wake of the country’s Arab Spring uprising. He recently announced he wouldn’t run in the election scheduled for November, saying a younger person should lead the country.

Essebsi was hospitalized twice in June. His office released a video of the president meeting with the defense minister Monday, and Essebsi was visibly weakened, raising concerns about his fitness for office. </s> Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the country’s first freely and democratically elected president, died Thursday aged 92. A champion of equal rights for women, Essebsi sought to reconcile secularist beliefs with Sharia law.

The 92-year-old Essebsi died in hospital, where he had been admitted into intensive care with a severe illness.

The veteran Tunisian politician was the world’s oldest head of state after Queen Elizabeth and Malaysian President Mahathir Mohamad.

He was elected the fourth president of Tunisia on December 31, 2014, three years after the Arab Spring uprising ousted the long-serving dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

On April 6, 2019, Essebsi announced he would not be seeking a second term in the forthcoming November elections, explaining that it was time to “open the door to the youth”. This announcement came on the heels of protests in neighbouring Algeria, which resulted in President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s April 2 resignation and the end of his 20-year rule.

Essebsi showed political leanings early on. Born on November 29, 1926 in Sidi Bou Said to a well-heeled Tunisian family, at the age of 12 he was heavily influenced by the violent riots of April 9, 1938, in which 21 Tunisians died in the name of reforms to end France’s sphere of influence in Tunisia.

Later, Essebsi would become active in the socialist, pro-independence Néo-Destour party. Its leader and founder Habib Bourguiba was a vocal advocate for the removal of French rule who had been instrumental in the April 9 protests. While studying law in Paris, he became a great admirer of Bourguiba’s teachings, which formed Essebsi’s beliefs in Tunisian independence from French rule.

His first political forays could be traced back to his Parisian student years; he became vice president of the Association of North-African Muslim Students, as well as an active member of the resistance against French colonial rule.

Essebsi returned to Tunis after completing his studies and embarked on a legal career. After Tunisia’s independence in 1956, Essebsi truly came into his own politically.

When his idol Habib Bourguiba became president of Tunisia in 1957, Essebsi was appointed director of national security. He rose through the ranks to hold several prominent positions, including minister of the interior and minister of defence.

He briefly served as ambassador to France in 1970 before returning to a law career. In 1981, he re-entered Tunisian politics with his appointment as minister of foreign affairs before taking up the post of ambassador to West Germany in 1987.

A coup d’état on November 7, 1987 saw Bourguiba replaced by his own prime minister, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Under the latter’s rule, Essebsi continued to serve at high levels of government, including posts as minister of the interior and president of the Tunisian national assembly.

After the Arab Spring of 2011, Essebsi became interim prime minister on February 27 of that year, leaving the post on December 24 to be replaced by Hamadi Jebali.

In 2012, he formed his own political party, Nidaa Tounes -- a diverse party made up of business leaders, intellectuals, unionists, and leftist militants as well as members of the old regime who were allied with the Islamist Ennahdha movement. In 2014, just two years after the party’s creation, Nidaa Tounes swept the legislative elections, which paved the way for Essebsi to run for president.

Playing off his image as a wise elder, he defeated incumbent Moncef Markouzi to become the nation’s fourth president, and its first democratically elected one. Essebsi led Tunisia towards numerous reforms, including gender equality and election reform. His death leaves the presidency vacant at a time of increasing tensions for Tunisia. </s> Tunisia's 92-year-old president, Beji Caid Essebsi, who helped guide the North African country's transition to democracy after a 2011 revolution, has died, the presidency said on Thursday.

A leading figure in the country's fortunes since the 'Arab Spring' uprising eight years ago, Essebsi was hospitalised late last month for a week after suffering what authorities described as a severe health crisis.

'On Thursday morning, the President of the Republic died at the military hospital in Tunis...The burial ceremony will be announced later,' a presidency statement said. The prime minister declared seven days of national mourning.

Tunisia's foreign minister said a state funeral for Essebsi would be held on Saturday and the presidency urged Tunisians to unite and safeguard the nation's present and future.

The country has been hit by occasional unrest over high unemployment and by several deadly Islamist militant attacks.

The speaker of parliament, Mohamed Ennaceur, said he would become the temporary president, in line with the constitution.

The next presidential election, hitherto set for Nov. 17, will now be held earlier, the electoral commission chief said, without elaborating. A parliamentary vote is set for Oct. 6.

The coming elections will be the third set of polls in which Tunisians have been able to vote freely since the 2011 revolution.

Essebsi rose to prominence after the overthrow of veteran autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, which was followed by Arab Spring uprisings against authoritarian leaders across the Middle East, including in nearby Libya and Egypt.

Drafted in as premier in 2011 after Ben Ali was toppled, Essebsi was elected president three years later, becoming Tunisia's first directly elected head of state. He founded one of the secular parties in Tunisia's governing coalition.

'After the revolution, the president led the people to avoid confrontation, led the democratic transition and was keen to build and complete the constitutional institutions,' the presidency statement said.

Analyst Ibrahim Ouslati said the death of Essebsi, one of the world's oldest leaders, was not likely to disrupt politics.

'I don't think there will be any problem because Tunisians have a constitution that clearly shows that the speaker of the parliament occupies the position temporarily,' he said.

'Politically, there will be no problem. The political elite has enough awareness to manage it wisely like any democratic country.'

Tunisia has been hailed as the only democratic success of the Arab Spring uprisings, with a new constitution, free elections and a coalition government with secular and moderate Islamists in a region otherwise struggling with upheaval.

But political progress has not been matched by economic advances. Unemployment stands at about 15 percent, up from 12 percent in 2010, due to weak growth and low investment.

Essebsi's death comes at a time of fresh attempts to replace dictatorships with democracy in the Middle East.

The armed forces of neighbouring Algeria and Sudan ousted long-serving rulers of those countries after mass protests. But it remains unclear whether greater freedoms will result.

Rached Ghannouchi, influential leader of Tunisia's moderate Islamist Ennahda Party, which governs in coalition with two secular parties, said Essebsi was credited with leading a smooth transition to democracy by promoting inclusive politics.

Essebsi faced criticism, however, that he was seeking a return to a strong state with power concentrated in the presidency, whose role is limited to foreign and defence policies under the new constitution.

Critics also accused him of seeking a dynastic handover to his son and a retreat from post-revolution freedoms, and failing to support a truth commission seeking justice for the victims of authoritarian rule.

Essebsi, who served as a speaker of parliament under Ben Ali, denied all such accusations.

Tunisia has been spared much of the violence seen elsewhere in the Middle East since 2011, although it has been the target of militant Islamists over the years.

Government troops have been battling militant groups in remote areas near the border with Algeria, while high unemployment has also stoked disturbances in recent years. </s> (CNN) Tunisia's 92-year-old president was rushed to a military hospital after suffering a "severe health crisis" on Thursday, shortly after two suicide attacks struck the capital Tunis.

President Beji Caid Essebsi was "taken seriously ill and transferred to the military hospital in Tunis," the Tunisian presidency said in a post on Facebook Thursday.

The announcement came as police were securing the site of two suicide bombings that targeted security forces in Tunis, killing at least one person and injuring several others.

All of those wounded in the explosions were in stable condition Thursday evening, the director of Charles Nicolle Hospital told state-run TAP news agency.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks, but did not offer any evidence, in a statement published by the group's affiliated media wing, Amaq news agency. CNN cannot independently verify its claim.

Read More </s> Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi has died at the age of 92. He was the country's first democratically elected leader, coming to power in the wake of the Arab Spring revolution. Essebsi was admitted to a hospital in Tunisia on Wednesday, but officials haven't specified what he was receiving treatment for.

Announcing the leader's death, Tunisia's presidential Facebook page said funeral plans for Essebsi would be announced soon.

Essebsi helped bring stability to Tunisia after a series of street demonstrations ousted former President Zine el-Abedine Ben Ali in 2011. Tunisia is the only democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring — the public protests that spread to other countries in North Africa and Middle East.

"As leader, he relaxed a sweeping inheritance law to improve equality between men and women, and called for Tunisian women to be able to marry non-Muslims," NPR's Ruth Sherlock reports for our Newscast unit. 

 

Earlier this year, Essebsi said he would not run for office again, saying it was time for younger people to step up. Tunisia is scheduled to hold a new election in November.

In Tunisia's reformed government, Essebsi served as interim prime minister before being elected president in 2014. By then, he had already had a long political career, serving for decades under Ben Ali. As NPR's Scott Neuman reported on his election, "Essebsi's support comes from the wealthy coastal regions and he has used his experience and the prospect of stability to woo voters."

Essebsi led the secular-leaning Nidaa Tounes (Tunisia Calls) party. The Associated Press reports that in the lead-up to his election, Essebsi presented "his centrist movement as a bulwark against rising Islamic fundamentalism and political chaos that rocked Tunisia after the people's revolt overthrew a longtime dictator and unleashed similar movements throughout the region."

After taking up politics in the 1940s, Essebsi later joined the fight for de-colonization.

He served under Tunisia's first president, Habib Bourguiba, who took power after the country gained independence from France. Essebsi held several senior roles under Bourguiba, including director of security, minister of defense, foreign minister and interior minister.

After retiring from politics in 1994, Essebsi returned to help lead the government in 2011.

Essebsi's reputation took a hit in the wake of the Arab Spring, when Tunisia's Truth and Dignity Commission released its tally of abuses under years of authoritarian rule. He was accused of human rights violations related to the put-down of a coup attempt in 1963, as The New York Times has reported.

The International Center for Transitional Justice said the commission's report referenced Essebsi's tenure as minister of the interior "when torture was rampant."

As president, Essebsi's tenure ushered in political openness and freedom of speech, but he was unable to ease Tunisia's economic problems, which sparked new protests. Earlier this year Essebsi said, "A democracy cannot be built in eight years. Tangible results need time," according to the AP.

In 2018, NPR's Sherlock reported from Tunisia, "One thing everyone does agree on is that freedom of expression is the main reward of the 2011 revolution," but by then, economic problems were prompting strikes and protests.

As Sherlock said in that story, new tensions over poverty, unemployment and other social issues gave rise to a new movement led by young people. In English, Sherlock said, the group's name translates to "What are we waiting for?"
The 92-year-old and first freely-elected President of Tunisia, Beji Caid Essebsi, dies. Tunisian parliament President Mohamed Ennaceur takes the role of interim president.