TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisians and visiting dignitaries are bidding adieu to the country’s first democratically elected president, Beji Caid Essebsi, who died in office at 92.
Arab leaders and French President Emmanuel Macron are among those attending Saturday’s funeral ceremony in Tunis. Military officers carried his coffin, draped in a red Tunisian flag.
Essebsi won Tunisia’s first free election after the 2011 uprising that brought the North African country democracy and unleashed uprisings around the Arab world.
Upon this death, the parliament chief has taken over as interim president pending a new election on Sept. 15.
Tunisia remains plagued by economic troubles and sporadic terrorist attacks but is the only country to emerge from the Arab Spring with a functioning democracy and is relatively open and stable compared to other countries in the region.
