Key events in Tunisia since the revolution which ousted president Zine Al Abedine Bin Ali after 23 years in power and sparked popular uprisings across the Arab world:

 

2011

January 14: Under massive popular pressure over unemployment and high prices, Zine Al Abedine Bin Ali flees to Saudi Arabia with his family, becoming the first Arab leader to step down in what later becomes known as the Arab Spring.

February 25: 100,000 people stage anti-government demonstration in Tunis. Clashes as police stations are torched and ransacked.

March 1: Moderate Islamist movement Al Nahda legalised.

October 23: Al Nahda wins 89 of the 217 seats in a new constituent assembly after Tunisia’s first free election.

December 12: Secular opposition leader Munsif Marzouqi, a fierce Bin Ali rival, elected president.

 

2012

June 11-12: Unrest triggered by an art exhibition that includes works deemed offensive to Islam. The government blames hardline Salafists and old regime loyalists.

September 14: Four people killed in clashes at the US embassy amid protests over an anti-Islam film.

November 27-December 1: 300 injured in clashes between police and protesters in Siliana, southwest of the capital.

 

2013

February 6: Prominent opposition leader Shukri Belaid shot dead, triggering deadly protests and a political crisis that brings down Islamist prime minister Hamadi Jebali.

April 30: Bin Ali sentenced to life in prison in his absence for a third time.

July 25: Opposition leader Mohammad Brahimi shot dead, also by suspected Islamist militants, sparking demonstrations in Tunis and elsewhere, and fresh calls for the Al Nahda-led government’s departure.

August 2: The army announces a huge air and ground operation against Islamist militants in the Mount Shaambi area along the Algerian border. The government accuses Tunisia’s main Salafist movement Ansar Al Sharia of links to Al Qaida and of being behind the killings of Belaid and Brahimi.

 

2014

January 9: Demonstrators clash with security forces in the central town of Kasserine, amid rising social discontent since late 2013.

January 27: Tunisia’s lawmakers adopt a new constitution after two years of political turmoil which exposed a deep rift between Al Nahda and the secular opposition.

January 29: A government of independents, led by Mahdi Juma and tasked with steering Tunisia to fresh elections, is sworn in, replacing the Islamist-led administration.

July 16: Suspected Islamist militants kill 15 Tunisian soldiers in the Mount Shaambi region, in the deadliest such attack in the army’s history. Some 50 soldiers, police officers and gendarmes have been killed in attacks involving armed groups since 2011.

October 4: Campaigning officially gets under way for October 26 parliamentary election.