[TIME] Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, the North African country’s first democratically elected leader and heir to Tunisia’s founding father, has died. He was 92.Essebsi died Thursday morning at the Tunis military hospital, where he was taken the night before, an official in the president’s office told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named. The presidential Facebook page said funeral plans will be announced soon.
Under Tunisia’s constitution, the president of the parliament will assume the presidency for 45 to 90 days while elections are organized.
Essebsi won office in 2014 in the wake of the country’s Arab Spring uprising. He emerged from retirement to seek the presidency at age 88, presenting his centrist movement as a bulwark against rising Islamic fundamentalism and political chaos that rocked Tunisia after the people’s people’s revolt overthrew a longtime dictator and unleashed similar movements throughout the region.