The "coup d'état" framing is unusually candid for a commemorative issue. Tunisia's November 7, 1987 removal of Habib Bourguiba — the country's founding president — was orchestrated by Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who had Bourguiba declared medically unfit by a panel of physicians rather than staging an overtly military takeover. Ben Ali's government consistently styled the event a constitutional transition, making the word "coup" in this coin's official catalog name a curiosity of Western numismatic nomenclature rather than Tunisian state language.
By 2005, Ben Ali had been ruling for eighteen years. He would last another six before being ousted in January 2011, the opening act of the Arab Spring.
The "coup d'état" framing is unusually candid for a commemorative issue. Tunisia's November 7, 1987 removal of Habib Bourguiba — the country's founding president — was orchestrated by Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who had Bourguiba declared medically unfit by a panel of physicians rather than staging an overtly military takeover. Ben Ali's government consistently styled the event a constitutional transition, making the word "coup" in this coin's official catalog name a curiosity of Western numismatic nomenclature rather than Tunisian state language.
By 2005, Ben Ali had been ruling for eighteen years. He would last another six before being ousted in January 2011, the opening act of the Arab Spring.