The president of Tunisia, officially the president of the Republic of Tunisia (Arabic: رئيس الجمهورية التونسية, romanized: Ra'īs al-Jumhūriyyah at-Tūnisiyyah), is the executive head of state of Tunisia. The president exercises executive power with the assistance of a government headed by the prime minister in a presidential system and is the commander-in-chief of the Tunisian Armed Forces. Under the Constitution, the president is elected by direct universal suffrage for a term of five years, renewable once.
The first president of the Tunisian Republic when the position was created on 25 July 1957 was Habib Bourguiba, who remained in power for 30 years until he was removed through the coup of 7 November 1987, by his prime minister Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who appointed himself President of the Republic, and in turn remained in power for 23 years, until his fall in the Tunisian revolution on 14 January 2011. He then appointed Fouad Mebazaa as interim president, until he handed over power on 13 December 2011 to the politician Moncef Marzouki, the first democratic president in the country's history, who was elected by the Constituent Assembly.