Ahmed Ben Salah

Ahmed Ben Salah (Arabic: أحمد بن صالح) (13 January 1926 – 16 September 2020) was a Tunisian politician and trade union leader.

[3] His schooling finished, he entered the world of liberation politics, becoming president of the youth wing of the Destourian party (jeunesse scolaire destourienne) and in 1947, while still in France, working to ensure liaison between the Neo Destour nationalist movement in Tunisia, their exiled leader, Habib Bourguiba, in Cairo, and Moncef Bey, the former bey/king, who was living out his final years under surveillance in Pau (southwest France).

In 1951 the UGTT switched to the recently formed International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) which, in the context of the cold war rivalries of the time, was more western in its orientation.

During 1956, Ben Salah did not hold back from criticism of Tunisia's emerging political elite, focused on the Neo Destour movement, which he accused of serving the interests of the "grande bourgeoisie".

Keen to preserve unity, Habib Bourguiba, who was elected to the presidency of the constitutional assembly on 8 April, asserted that egalitarian claims should not be allowed to degenerate into pressure from the dispossessed to impoverish the wealthy.

During 1960, with foreign investment drying up and a flight of capital out of the country, Habib Bourguiba sensed a decline in the popular enthusiasm for his régime that had accompanied independence.

The Ben Salah strategy expanded along with his ministerial ambit which included the ministry of education from 1967 and also extended into control of the important agriculture sector.

However, it was rapid changes in agriculture and its intensive mechanisation, which aggravated the situation of the peasants outside the system and those without land, while even inside the co-operative structures discontent mounted, resulting from excessive sclerotic bureaucracy undermined efficiency and even led to late payment of wages.

By 1968, the entire commercial sector was affected, and in January 1969 street violence broke out, notably at Ouerdanin where a dozen demonstrators lost their lives in confrontations with the forces of law and order.

An alliance of discontent covering the commercial and agriculture sectors joined together to oppose Ben Salah who also lost the support of the dispossessed poorer peasants.