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(1903- 2000) Leader of the independence struggle of Tunisia, and the country's first president (1957- 87).
 As president of Tunisia, Bourguiba was a type of North African
Atatürk; he reduced the influence of religion on society
and he guaranteed the rights of women, economically, in marriage and in social life. The politics of Tunisia became one of
moderate, European-like solutions.
The country had in the 1960s good economic growth, but clientilism (the system where the knowledge and allegiance to people
in important positions is more important than juridical rights), at the core of Tunisian society, became increasingly destructive
to the social and economic development of the country. People with the right friends or relatives came to receive concessions,
without having the necessary competence. Monopolies were built around such systems, and in the 1980s it became evident that
this choked the Tunisian society.
With a Bourguiba weakened by age, the 1980s saw a leader incompetent to rule, and when he was deposed in 1987, Tunisia was
on the verge of civil war, since the Islamists were treated
in a random and cruel fashion. Ordinary Tunisians were also becoming increasingly dissatisfied.
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