Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia’s former autocratic president whose extravagant life and oppressive rule inspired the first Arab Spring revolts of 2011, died on Thursday in exile in Saudi Arabia. He was 83.

The Tunisian state news agency reported his death. He had been treated for prostate cancer and was hospitalized last week.

His death came four days after Tunisians voted in their second free presidential elections since his ouster, further solidifying their nation’s status as the purest direct democracy in the Arab world.

Mr. Ben Ali was the first of the autocrats to be ousted in the uprisings that roiled the Middle East nearly nine years ago. He fled Tunisia with his family in January 2011 for Saudi Arabia, where the ruling monarchy allowed him to live quietly, rejecting Tunisian requests for his extradition to stand trial at home.