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Source: FETHI BELAID / AFP
Street vendor starts the Revolution
An extraordinary and shocking protest triggered a historic chain reaction in early 2011. Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire out of dissatisfaction with his hopeless situation. Bouazizi's self-immolation sparked a historic movement, the Arab Spring, in which several corrupt regimes in the Middle East and North Africa were brought to a forced end by a series of peaceful demonstrations. In Tunisia, too, the 23-year rule of then-president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali came to an end. Under Ben Ali's rule, Tunisia struggled with an economy where only he and his confidants were improving, a tight labour market and the many human rights violations that are to his credit. Criticism was harshly put down, with critics of his regime being mistreated and imprisoned. Tunisians had had enough, resulting in the Arab Spring.
Tunisia is the founder of the Revolution and was democratically advanced until 2021. It can be argued that today, the country has again greatly deteriorated compared to the Ben Ali era and is already deep into the path of an autocracy under the rule of current president Kais Saied. A successful impeachment that stranded after 15 years in a sidelined parliament and many political prisoners as the end result. But exactly what factors contributed to Tunisia's sinking towards autocratic rule, 15 years after the first flare of the Arab Spring?
Surging democratic transition
After the successful ousting of the then dictator Zine El Abdine Ben Ali, space was created for new political freedoms and the establishment of a democratic state, as the protesters demanded. At the time, the Revolution was a success due to the union of Tunisians across the ideological spectrum. This mutual union embittered after the Revolution by creating a power vacuum that multiple political elites claimed to fill. The political landscape was characterised by fragmentation from right to left.
The country was plagued by political instability in the following years, including the political murders of two left-wing opposition leaders, Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi, in 2013, which left the country in total chaos. Calm later returned through the mediation of the National Dialogue Quartet, a group composed of several civil society organisations that facilitated dialogue between the conflicting groups. It successfully supported the drafting of a new inclusive constitution, in which there is a semi-presidential system has been adopted. In this system, the president focuses on foreign relations and national security and the prime minister deals with domestic policy and day-to-day administration. Through this system, mutual control would rule out potential concentration of power by one power. This brought stability back to society, after which there was hope for a successful transition period to a stable democracy.
Post-revolutionary Tunisia
One positive outcome was the flowering of the civil society post-revolution. The rise of hundreds of new political parties and the emergence of a large number of civil society organisations that promoted human rights, women's rights and journalistic freedoms. Tunisian citizens actively participated in the civil society field, where they spoke out freely on political and social issues on the streets and online. After the new constitution came into force in 2014, the following years saw free and fair elections in which all parties were allowed to participate. According to V-Dem, which collects data on democracies worldwide, Tunisia is rated positively as an electoral democracy between 2012-2021.
The first cracks in Tunisians' confidence began to gradually settle in the years after 2011. Politics was associated with an ideological power struggle, where division was the outcome. Parliament was portrayed daily in the news as a place where parties fought out their differences among themselves and coalitions emerged with difficulty. Years passed as a result, with politics ignoring the economy and the labour market, which damaged confidence even more deeply. For instance, gross domestic product dropped to 1.8% per year, versus the 4.6% from previous years.
To these elections, political elites from the Ben Ali era were allowed to already participating and taking a seat in politics. This ensured that there was no successful transitional justice, with measures taken to build a stable democracy, when elites who undermined it in the past can once again be at the controls. The interests of these elites were unchanged when descendants of Ben Ali's party, the Democratic Constitutional Rally (DCR), under a new party won the elections in 2014 and came to power.
The economic and political progress that lagged behind was noticeable in policy and society. The transition after 2011 did not bring the full-fledged developments Tunisians hoped for. This set the door ajar for dictator Kais Saied, Tunisia's current president.
Kais Saied's successful bid as autocrat
An independent politician, Kais Saied has served as president since 2019. The former law professor became hugely popular for his pledges, where he values integrity in governance and challenging corruption. He attracted many young people with this message and won the election with 73%.
In the years following his appointment, fierce debates broke out again in parliament over ideology, finances and even personal issues between parliamentarians. This made forming a coalition difficult and kept the lack of a majority to implement policies. A party-less president did not contribute much to reconciliation and interfered in domestic affairs, which strained the relationship between Kaies Saied and then prime minister Hichem Mechichi. Saied used the growing discontent as an opportunity and carried out a soft coup in a two-year pace. In which he became the suspended parliamentary meetings for a month, dismissed Prime Minister Mechichi, took control over the appointment of the judiciary and approved legislative changes itself without parliamentary approval.
Parliamentarians tried to restore their power, which Saied saw as a threat and the Parliament officially suspended on 25 July 2022 and assumed both executive and legislative powers. He argued that parliamentarians were planning a coup and threatened national security; here was subsequently no concrete evidence for. For this, he abused Article 80 of the Constitution, giving the president full power in situations of national emergency. It followed that the best-known opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi wrongfully imprisoned, as well as other politicians, judges, journalists and citizens were given heavy prison sentences If they criticised.
Tunisia further in decline
With this, the civil society in which citizens could still voice some form of criticism. We spoke to someone from civil society in Tunisia, who does not want to be named because of the current political situation. She describes the current situation: “There has been a decline in political pluralism, restrictions on civil society activities, and growing pressure on opposition votes. In addition, public trust in electoral processes and democratic institutions has declined, reflecting broader concerns about transparency, accountability and participation in democratic life.”
Confidence in the electoral system was visible in the recent 2024 elections. In these sham elections candidates were not given a chance to participate by locking up candidates and the opposition a few days before election day. With a vote turnout of 28% Saied won himself with 90.7% a second term and electoral autocracy could be officially declared.
The economic situation did not improve under Saied; the Youth unemployment was 39%, where 17% of the population lives below the poverty line and that in the western agricultural section rises to 37%. In addition, Tunisia is struggling with huge repayment schemes of older and recent loans with high interest rates. With a recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan of $ 745 million and the World Bank of $ 520 million. With a total of one public debt of $ 40 trillion President Saied is relying on borrowing to keep the economy going, further driving the Tunisian currency into free fall.
Controversial migration deal with EU
The international scene was also hectic under Saied's rule. For instance, the EU signed a migration deal with Tunisia in 2023 to sharply reduce the number of migrants crossing into Europe from Tunisia. In exchange for strengthening its border crossing and taking a strict approach towards drug smuggling, the EU made a financial investment in the country. A generous €150 million was granted to the Tunisian state treasury. After further investigation, the migration deal was declared controversial for several reasons. For one, it was found to involve human rights violations. For instance, authorities detained migrants frequently assaulted, wrongfully detained and many are abandoned near the Libyan border in the Sahara. Further, the EU was held to account by awarding huge sums of money to a well-known dictator and there was no to little oversight or transparency in how the money was spent. This embarrassed the EU by awarding money and engaging with a dictator to serve its own interests.
A democratic disappointment
Tunisia saw a brief transformation after the Arab Spring into a shaky democracy that did not last. After years of political instability and economic stagnation, the democratically elected Kais Saied managed to take full power democratically. In the process, the civil society and separation of powers, which further damaged Tunisians' trust in the state. The EU's contribution, which instead of condemning Saied's dictatorship regime, serves its own interests first by perpetuating his corrupt presidency with multi-million dollar investments, is controversial. Every day since the Arab Spring, Tunisia is moving further and further away from the dream of fulfilling a stable democracy through figures like Kais Saied.
