50 Dinars 1995 Coup d'état 8th Anniversary

This piece commemorates the eighth anniversary of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's seizure of power on November 7, 1987, when he removed the aging and increasingly erratic Habib Bourguiba — Tunisia's founding president — through a medical coup, presenting certificates signed by physicians declaring Bourguiba mentally unfit to govern. Ben Ali's government subsequently rebranded the date as a national holiday, "Change Day," and issued commemorative coinage annually to legitimize the new order. The 1995 striking falls midway through what would prove a 23-year authoritarian tenure, ending only with the 2011 revolution that helped ignite the Arab Spring.