TUNIS: With theburial in Saudi exile yesterday of former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali,Tunisia is turning the page on more than two decades of nepotism and repressionwith a large dose of indifference. Forced out of Tunisia on Jan 14, 2011, by weeks of popular outragespurred by the self-immolation of a market trader protesting police harassmentand unemployment, Ben Ali died on Thursday in the Saudi city of Jeddah. Hisdeath did not feature especially heavily either in the news or theconversations of ordinary Tunisians, in a country that is in the midst ofelections.
Reflecting thepluralism that has emerged since Ben Ali's downfall, two non-establishmentcandidates made it through the first round of a presidential poll held lastSunday - one a socially conservative academic committed to radicaldecentralization of power, the other a populist media magnate currently behindbars.
The funeral ofthe former president took place in the holy city of Madinah in Saudi Arabiayesterday, an AFP photographer said. He was laid to rest at Al-Baqi cemeterynext to Prophet Muhammad's (PBUH) mosque and a place of great reverence forMuslims. His body, covered by a green shroud, was carried to his final restingplace by a procession of about a dozen men. Some dressed in white, and othersin suits, they crossed a marble forecourt in the shadow of the green dome ofthe mosque, before entering the cemetery.
Some of hisfamily were to receive condolences today in an upmarket suburb of Tunis,according to a small notice published in La Presse newspaper. The ex-leader'swife, Leila Trabesli, who has led a comfortable and discreet life in exile withdaughters Nesrine and Halima - along with son Mohamed - has little incentive toreturn home. She faces heavy sentences for embezzlement, alongside possessionof weapons, drugs and archaeological artefacts.
Ben Ali himselfwas sentenced several times to life in prison, including for the bloodysuppression of protests in the last weeks of his autocratic rule, which killedmore than 300 people. He never faced justice. "The second president of theTunisian republic henceforth belongs to history, and history will judgehim", said his Lebanese lawyer Akram Azouri.
Several trialsare ongoing, notably under the auspices of the Truth and Dignity Commission,which is mandated to shine a light on violations committed between 1955 and2013. The commission has collected witness testimony, documents and informationfrom official archives so that those implicated in serious abuses can be judgedby special courts. Fourteen public hearings have meanwhile brought a measure ofclosure for relatives of the disappeared. They have also seen public testimonyon the network of corruption established by Ben Ali's nephew, Imed Trabelsi,who was a pillar of the regime.
The extendedfamily of Ben Ali's hated wife captured vast swathes of the economy, asdetailed by the World Bank in a 2014 report. The global lender said that by theend of 2010, the 114 people who comprised the Ben Ali clan controlled 220businesses that hoovered up more than a fifth of all private sector profits.When he was forced from power, hundreds of businesses and properties, alongwith luxury cars and jewelry hoarded by the Ben Ali family, were impoundedthrough a state holding company.
That firm -Karama Holding - still owns 51 percent of telecom company Orange's Tunisiaoperations, a majority of the country's biggest cement company, and swathes ofagricultural land and palaces. The Tunisian state is still far from retrievingall of the pillaged funds. One highly visible symbol of the rot that set inunder Ben Ali is a collection of rusting yachts gathered at the port of SidiBou Said. Luxury cars and even a camper van, offered for sale last year, havefailed to garner interest.
Persistent socialand economic problems have fed nostalgia in some quarters for the Ben Ali erabut that is a limited phenomenon. Abir Moussi, the only candidate to overtlydefend the record of Ben Ali's former ruling party, came a distant ninth inlast Sunday's presidential election first round with four percent of the vote.- AFP