Mohammed Bouazizi, a man from Tunisia sets himself on fire to protest his treatment by the police coupled with the Wikileaks scandal exposing crimes against Tunisia caused one of the most major uprisings which would eventually lead to the removal of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from the government.
However, it was not just two spontaneous events that caused these riots. Tunisia was plagued with a corrupt government, terrible unemployment, and inflation. So much so, that people could not afford to feed themselves. The Tunisian people lived in poor living conditions and were denied basic and political freedom. Freedom of speech was basically nonexistent. President Ben Ali was in power for almost 23 years, but the socially and politically fueled riots caused him to flee to Saudi Arabia. There hadn't been demonstrations as powerful as this in Tunisia for almost 30 years. Police brutality was common and many of the deaths counted in the process of this revolt was the result of this.
The culprit behind the harried state of Tunisia was the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD), the political party of disgraced President Ben Ali. The effort to appoint members of government outside of the RCD was unsuccessful and the ministers resigned almost immediately. The protests against RCD members became so great, that Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi removed all RCD members from government (other than himself of course), the party was suspended and eventually removed. Beji Caid el Sebsi became prime minister after Ghannouchi resigned.
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