½ Dinar Country map

Tunisia's ½ Dinar coin of this period was issued under the presidency of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who had deposed Habib Bourguiba in a November 1987 "medical coup" — just months before the first pieces entered circulation. The Banque Centrale had been preparing the issue under Bourguiba's government; Ben Ali's administration simply inherited it.

The three-year production window coincides with the early phase of Tunisia's IMF-guided structural adjustment program, which severely contracted public spending and contributed to the bread riots of 1984 just years prior.