Neo Destour
One serious rival to Habib Bourguiba was Salah Ben Youssef. Exiled in Cairo during the early 1950s he had absorbed the pan-Arab nationalism associated with the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdul Nasser. Yet as a result of his strong opposition to the Neo Destour leadership during their negotiations with France for autonomy prior to independence, Ben Youssef was removed from his position as secretary-general and expelled from the party. Nonetheless he rallied disaffected union members, students, and others, enough to put 20,000 "youssefists" into the street during the next congress of the Neo Destour party. Eventually he left Tunisia for Cairo. This was the end of any meaningful opposition to Bourguiba. In 1963, the Neo-Destour Party was proclaimed to be the only legally permitted party, though for all intents and purposes Tunisia had been a one-party state since independence.