Tunisia’s president Beji Essebsi is dead

The president of Tunisia, Beji Caid Essebsi, is dead.

Essebsi died on Thursday afternoon aged 92, the presidency said in a statement.

Essebsi, a major player in the country’s transition to democracy since 2011, had been hospitalised late last month and spent a week in hospital after suffering a “severe health crisis”.

The president only appeared twice since leaving the hospital on July 1, and was then again taken into a military hospital on Wednesday.

His office released a video of the president meeting with the defense minister on Monday, and Essebsi was visibly weakened, raising concerns about his fitness for office.

Under the country’s Constitution, the president of Tunisia’s Parliament will assume the presidency for 45 to 90 days while elections are organised.

Essebsi was elected to office in 2014 in the wake of the country’s Arab Spring uprising.

He recently announced that he would not run in the polls scheduled for November this year, saying “a younger person should lead the country”.

Additional reporting by agencies.