Beji Caid Essebsi (or es-Sebsi; Arabic: الباجي قائد السبسي, romanized: al-Bājī Qā’id as-Sibsī, ; 29 November 1926 – 25 July 2019) was a Tunisian politician who served as the fourth president of Tunisia from 2014 until his death in 2019. Previously, he served as minister of foreign affairs from 1981 to 1986 and prime minister from February to December 2011.
Essebsi's political career spanned six decades, culminating in his leadership of Tunisia in its transition to democracy. Essebsi was the founder of the Nidaa Tounes political party, which won a plurality in the 2014 parliamentary election. In December 2014, he won the first regular presidential election following the Tunisian Revolution, becoming Tunisia's first democratically elected president.
Born in 1926, in Sidi Bou Said to an elite family originally from Sardinia (Italy), he was the great-grandson of Ismail Caïd Essebsi, a Sardinian kidnapped by Barbary corsairs in the Beylik of Tunis along the coasts of the island at the beginning of the nineteenth century, who then became a mamluk leader (he was raised with the ruling family after converting to Islam and was later recognized as a free man when he became an important member of the government).
Essebsi's first involvement in politics came in 1941, when he joined the Neo Destour youth organization in Hammam-Lif. He went to France in 1950 to study law in Paris. He began his career as a lawyer defending Neo-Destour activists. Essebsi later joined Tunisia's leader Habib Bourguiba as a supporter of the Tunisian separatist movement and later as his adviser following the country's independence from France in 1956.
Essebsi, a protégé of Bourguiba, held various posts under Bourguiba from 1957 to 1971, including chief of the regional administration, general director of the Sûreté nationale, Interior Minister in 1965, Minister-Delegate to the Prime Minister, Defense Minister in 1969, and then Ambassador to Paris.
From October 1971 to January 1972, he advocated greater democracy in Tunisia and resigned his function, then returning to Tunis.
In April 1981, he came back to the government under Mohamed Mzali as Minister of Foreign Affairs, serving until September 1986. In 1987, he switched allegiance following Ben Ali's removal of Bourguiba from power. He was appointed as Ambassador to West Germany. From 1990 to 1991, he was the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies.
Interim Prime Minister in 2011
On 27 February 2011, in the aftermath of the Tunisian Revolution that ousted long-serving leader Ben Ali, Tunisian Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi then resigned following a day of clashes in Tunis with five protesters being killed. On the same day, acting President Fouad Mebazaa appointed Caïd Essebsi as the new Prime Minister, describing him as "a person with an impeccable political and private life, known for his profound patriotism, his loyalty and his self-sacrifice in serving his country." The mostly young protesters continued taking their discontent to the streets, criticizing the unilateral appointment of Essebsi without further consultation. Essesbi nevertheless has been described as someone who had "remained at a distance from Ben Ali" since his leaving politics in 1991, a move significant for "contribut[ing] to his credibility and acceptance" in the years following the 2011 revolution, the post-Ben Ali era.
On 5 May accusations of the former Interior Minister Farhat Rajhi that a coup d'etat was being prepared against the possibility of the Islamic party Ennahda Party winning the Constituent Assembly election in October. This, again, led to several days of fierce anti-Government protests and clashes on the streets. In the interview disseminated on Facebook, Rajhi called Caïd Essebsi a "liar", whose government had been manipulated by the old Ben Ali circles. Caïd Essebsi strongly rejected Rajhi's accusations as "dangerous and irresponsible lies, [aimed at spreading] chaos in the country" and also dismissed him from his post as director of the High Commission for Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which he had retained after being dismissed from the office as Interior Minister already on 8 March. Nevertheless, Ennahda's president Rached Ghannouchi further fueled the suspicions, stating that "Tunisians doubt the credibility of the Transitional Government."
After the elections in October, Caïd Essebsi left office on 24 December 2011 when the new Interim President Moncef Marzouki appointed Hamadi Jebali of the Islamist Ennahda, which had become the largest parliamentary group.
Following his departure from office, Caïd Essebsi founded the secular Nidaa Tounes party, which won a plurality of the seats in the October 2014 parliamentary election. He was also the party's candidate in the country's first free presidential elections, in November 2014.
On 22 December 2014, official election results showed that Essebsi had defeated incumbent President Moncef Marzouki in the second round of voting, receiving 55.68% of the vote. After the polls closed the previous day, Essebsi said on local television that he dedicated his victory to "the martyrs of Tunisia".
Essebsi was sworn in as president on 31 December 2014 at the age of 88, he was the first freely elected president of modern Tunisia. He played a vital role in helping ensure that, more than any other Arab state, the North African country preserved many of the essential gains of the Arab spring movement, which began in Tunisia originally. He vowed on the occasion of his swearing-in to "be president of all Tunisian men and women without exclusion" and stressed the importance of "consensus among all parties and social movements".
On 3 August 2016, Essebsi appointed Youssef Chahed as a prime minister as the parliament withdrew confidence from Habib Essid's government.
In 2017, he called for legal amendments to the inheritance law to ensure equal rights for men and women, and he called for Tunisian women to be able to marry non-Muslims, which he believed to be not in direct conflict with Sharia nor with the Tunisian constitution.
In 2018, he proposed a revision of Tunisian electoral law, which he felt contained many shortcomings going against the principles of the 2011 revolution.
On 13 August 2018, he promised also to submit a bill to parliament soon which would aim to give women equal inheritance rights with men, as debate over the controversial topic of inheritance reverberated then throughout the Muslim world.