On 7 November 2008, President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, at 72 years old, began his 22nd year in power, and is readying himself to win his fifth - and final- five-year mandate in the 2009 presidential elections.

A previous career in the army led to the post of head of the military security services (1964-1974), and then head of national security (1977-1980). Ben Ali was promoted to minister of the interior, then made prime minister in October 1987. He deposed President Habib Bourguiba, whose senility brought chaos to the end of his reign. Once head of state in November 1987, Ben Ali followed a reformist but prudent path, to avoid, in his words, "any slip-ups".

In politics, a mix of openness and authoritarianism has characterised his method in the democratic transition. On one hand, the presence in parliament of representatives of the 'moderate' opposition has been permitted, allowing them at present 20% of the seats, regardless of their election results. This does not prevent them being labelled as symbolic. The radical opposition and human rights defenders often complain of police harassment. The Islamist movement, created in 1981, turned out to have the largest popular support in the country after the ruling party in the parliamentary elections in 1989 - and since then has been outlawed.

As a sign of potential openness, for the 2009 presidential elections, any citizen can run, but on the conditions of having gained the support of at least 30 MPs or mayors, and not being over 75 years old. In fact, because of the weakness of the opposition and the monopoly held by the presidential party, these conditions are impossible to meet. The constitution, exceptionally, has been amended to allow the heads of legal opposition parties, even 'radical' ones, to become candidates.

Ben Ali has nevertheless drawn some lessons from two recent events that prove all is not well with Tunisia's youth. First, at the end of 2006, a small Salafist (hard-line Islamist) group, even though quickly neutralised, revealed the existence of a minority of youths who were drawn into violent protest. Then during the first quarter of 2008, in the mining region of Gafsa, in the south, several towns and villages were the theatre of conflict between the forces of order and young unemployed demonstrators. In response, the president shook up his ministerial team, bringing youth into the government and into his ruling party, the Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique.

On the economic front, and despite the preoccupations caused by an unemployment rate of 14%, even higher among young graduates, the success of the Tunisian economy has been recognised by international bodies and ratings agencies. Ben Ali has been a liberal reformer with a taste for free entreprise, spending a large part of his time on economic development, particularly to attract foreign investment. The economic growth rate has been around 5% a year over the last 15 years. And for several years, Tunisia has been in the top 50 of the Davos competitiveness report, at 36th place in the 2008/09 edition.

Tunisia was also the first country of the south Mediterranean to sign a partnership agreement with the EU in 1995. This undertook to progressively reduce tariff barriers between the two, which culminated in the free trade zone agreement which came into force from 1 January 2008.

The only problem is that an open economy in which 80% of trade is with the EU makes Tunisia a hostage to the fortunes of Europe. If recession hits the EU in the wake of the financial crisis, it will no doubt have an impact on Tunisia, and may well aggravate unemployment. Another challenge for Ben Ali.