Background
Mohamed Soyah was born on December 31, 1933, at Bouhajar, near Sousse.
Mohamed Soyah was born on December 31, 1933, at Bouhajar, near Sousse.
Student politics absorbed his atten¬tion for the next ten years. He became a member of the UGET executive bureau in 1957. He helped create the Confederation of North African Students and was elected its secretary-general.
From 1960 to 1962 he was secretary-general of UGET, then he was promoted deputy director of the Destour Socialist Party with responsibility for the official journal “L’Action”. In October 1963 he was appointed secretary-general of the Young Destour- ians and of the Union of Tunisian Youth. In November 1964 he was appointed party director and forged close links with socialist parties in Europe and Africa especially the liberation movements, including the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
He was transferred to the Prime Minister's Office on November 7, 1969, as State Secretary for Information. In June 1970 he was appointed Tunisian envoy to the European Office of the United Nations at Geneva. The following year he was called home to join the cabinet as Minister of Public Works. On his promotion at the reshuffle in June, 1973 he strengthened his position by becoming Director of the ruling Socialist Destour Party (PSD).
Joined the Destour Socialist Party as a schoolboy at Sadiki College, Tunis. Expelled two years later in 1951 as an “agitator causing strikes and protest marches. He continued his studies at Sfax and became a founder-member of UGET (General Union of Tunisian Students) in 1952
High flyer of the party, a member at 16, reaching cabinet rank at 37. Strike leader as a student, he worked his way up through the youth movement to become an MP, a member of the Central Committee and a member of the Political Bureau when he was only 30. Thrusting, a vigorous politician whose radicalism modified the conservative image of Tunisia in the rest of the Arab world and won a new respect from African and Palestinian liberation movements.