Tunisian leader signs key decrees on first day at work after health scare
London, July 5, 2019 (AltAfrica)-Tunisia’s 92-year-old president Beji Caid Essebsi has made his first public appearance since leaving hospital following a serious illness.
Video from the president’s office showed Essebsi signing a decree Friday authorizing elections in October and November and making a brief address, four days after being discharged from a military hospital.
In a statement later, his office said the president also prolonged the North African nation’s ongoing state of emergency for one more month.
Essebsi won office in 2014, in the wake of the country’s 2011 uprising that toppled autocratic leader Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.
He recently announced he wouldn’t run in the November election, saying a younger person should lead the country.
