Tunisia Head of state

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali

زين العابدين بن علي

Head of state Inactive Verified

President of Tunisia 1987-2011. Overthrown by the 2011 uprising that triggered the broader Arab Spring; fled to Saudi Arabia, died there in 2019.

Country: Tunisia
Party: Independent / unaligned
Role: Head of state
Status: Historical figure

Position

1 source document on file for Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (below). A document-grounded individual position is being scored from it; until that passes review no compass point is shown, rather than imply a precision the dataset doesn't yet have.

On the record

Quotes attributed to Zine El Abidine Ben Ali that have passed verification. Each carries a year, the context of the statement, and at least one source citation. Browse the full corpus or play the "Who said it?" game.

I have understood you. I understand all of you — the unemployed, those in need, the politicians and those who demand more freedom. I understand all of you.

فهمتكم. فهمتكم جميعاً، العاطلون عن العمل والمحتاجون والسياسيون والذين يطالبون بمزيد من الحرية. فهمتكم جميعاً.

2011 January 13 2011 televised address — the day before the speaker fled the country — promising not to run for re-election and to lift internet restrictions. lemonde.fr · en.wikipedia.org

Source documents

Texts tied to this politician — speeches, interviews, op-eds. The scoring pipeline reads these when scoring positions against documents. All documents →

Speech Arabic 2011-01-13

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (President/dictator of Tunisia, 1987–2011) — his iconic line from his final televised address, 13 Jan 2011 (per Arab48): "I have understood you… yes, I have understood you" — the deposed strongman's desperate, last-minute concession to the revolution. He fled to Saudi Arabia the next day, the first Arab Spring dictator to fall.

أنا فهمتكم.. نعم أنا فهمتكم

5 words original source ↗

How to cite

Each record carries a retrieval date because the dataset is live — individual entries update as verification deepens. Use the per-record citation when referencing this specific profile; use the dataset citation below when referencing the project as a whole.

In-text: (Gara, 2026)

Per-record citation

APA 7Reference list · academic default

Gara, T. (2026). Zine El Abidine Ben Ali [Politician profile]. Tayyar: A MENA political-position dataset. Retrieved August 6, 2026, from https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/pol/ben-ali

Chicago author-dateCommon in political-science journals

Gara, Tarek. 2026. "Zine El Abidine Ben Ali." Politician profile, Tayyar: A MENA political-position dataset. Accessed August 6, 2026. https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/pol/ben-ali.

BibTeXFor LaTeX / Zotero / reference managers

@misc{tayyar-ben-ali,
  title     = {{Zine El Abidine Ben Ali}},
  author    = {Gara, Tarek},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {Tayyar: A MENA political-position dataset},
  type      = {Politician profile},
  url       = {https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/pol/ben-ali},
  urldate   = {2026-08-06},
  note      = {First-pass entry; second-pass external review planned before publication.}
}

Dataset / working-paper citation

If you're citing Tayyar as a project rather than this individual record.

APA 7Preprint

Gara, T. (2026). Tayyar: A MENA political-position dataset [Preprint]. Retrieved August 6, 2026, from https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/paper

BibTeXPreprint

@unpublished{tayyar-preprint,
  title  = {{Tayyar: A MENA political-position dataset}},
  author = {Gara, Tarek},
  year   = {2026},
  type   = {Preprint},
  url    = {https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/paper},
  urldate = {2026-08-06},
  note   = {Living document, regenerated from the live dataset on page load.}
}

First-pass entry; second-pass external review planned before publication.