Ahmed Ben Salah () (13 January 1926 – 16 September 2020) was a Tunisian politician and trade union leader. His power and influence peaked between 1957 and 1969 when he was able to implement his ideas for a planned economy, holding simultaneously several key ministerial posts.
Life
Early years
Ahmed Ben Salah was born at Moknine, a mid-sized town in the coastal Sahel region, located between Monastir to the north and Mahdia to the south, in a region that during the run-up to decolonisation came to be known for nationalism. He undertook his secondary education at the prestigious Sadiki College in Tunis, completing his schooling in France during the 1940s.
His schooling finished, he entered the world of liberation politics, becoming president of the youth wing of the Destourian party (jeunesse scolaire destourienne) and in 1947, while still in France, working to ensure liaison between the Neo Destour nationalist movement in Tunisia, their exiled leader, Habib Bourguiba, in Cairo, and Moncef Bey, the former bey/king, who was living out his final years under surveillance in Pau (southwest France). Ben Salah returned to Tunisia in 1948 and embarked on a career in the trades union movement, joining the General Labour Union (Union Générale Tunisienne du Travail / UGTT) in 1948.
During the later 1940s, the UGTT was a member of the Athens based World Federation of Trade Unions which by the end of the decade was losing adherents internationally. In 1951 the UGTT switched to the recently formed International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) which, in the context of the cold war rivalries of the time, was more western in its orientation. For Ben Salah and the UGTT, membership of the ICFTU offered the prospect of a wider and more influential audience for the ambitions of the Tunisian nationalists.
UGTT Secretary General
The international role Ben Salah acquired through the ICFTU increased his profile in Tunisia, and he was elected general secretary of the UGTT shortly after the assassination of Farhat Hached on 5 December 1952, roughly eighteen months before the Carthage meeting of 31 July 1954 at which the French president recognised Tunisia's right to internal autonomy.
During 1956, Ben Salah did not hold back from criticism of Tunisia's emerging political elite, focused on the Neo Destour movement, which he accused of serving the interests of the "grande bourgeoisie". Keen to preserve unity, Habib Bourguiba, who was elected to the presidency of the constitutional assembly on 8 April, asserted that egalitarian claims should not be allowed to degenerate into pressure from the dispossessed to impoverish the wealthy.
Ben Salah's powerful personality set up a concern with the Neo Destourians that his control over the UGTT might lead to the creation of a socialist party outside the Neo Destourian consensus. The concern was followed by a rapid growth within the UGTT in pressure to remove Ben Salah. Matters reached a head at the UGTT congress in September 1956 when activists orchestrated by Bourguiba penetrated the union administrative commission and, backed by several regional unions, disaffiliated from the UGTT, grouping themselves instead into a rival body, the Tunisian Labour Union ("Union des travailleurs tunisiens"). The Neo-Destourians also applied pressure on UGTT member unions which led to the enforced resignation of union General Secretary Ben Salah in December 1956. He was replaced by Ahmed Tlili.
Government: heavy lifting
Excluded from his union role, Ben Salah was appointed minister of public health on 29 July 1957. The social affairs portfolio was added on 6 May 1958, and he retained the combined ministerial role till 3 January 1961.
During 1960, with foreign investment drying up and a flight of capital out of the country, Habib Bourguiba sensed a decline in the popular enthusiasm for his régime that had accompanied independence. The president now declared himself in favour of a planned economy and then of socialism. After a destabilising succession of ministerial appointments, in January 1961 Ahmed Ben Salah was appointed Minister for Planning and Minister of Finance. He retained both posts till September 1969.