Tunisia - Politics Tunisia was the epicenter of the 2011 Arab
Spring protest movement that swept through North Africa and led
to the ouster of President Ben Ali and later to the downfall of
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The military in Tunisia is
professional and does not play a role in politics. While former
president Ben Ali had a military background, he had risen
through the security bureaucracy and interior ministry, and did
not obtain the Presidence through a military coup. Unlike other
North African countries, such as Algeria, where independence
came as a result of armed struggle, Tunisian indepedence was
essentially a political process. This left the military with
little role in the narrative of national identity, and little
influence in politics. Starting from independence, the military
was given a defined defensive role, which excluded participation
in politics. Although there was some geographic sectionalism at
independence in 1957, the deep tribal or ethnic cleavages with
which other North Afri