50 Dinars 2009 Coup d'état 22nd Anniversary

Tunisia's "Coup d'état" commemorative series marks the November 7, 1987 removal of Habib Bourguiba by Prime Minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who declared the aging president medically unfit to govern — a clinical pretext for what was unambiguously a bloodless coup. Ben Ali then rebranded the date as a national holiday, "Change Day," and issued successive commemoratives as the anniversary climbed. By the 22nd iteration in 2009, the series had become an annual exercise in self-commemoration by a government two years away from its own violent end in the 2011 Jasmine Revolution.