Not long ago, Tunisia was considered one of the biggest success stories in the Middle East and North Africa. Unlike neighboring Arab countries that experienced massive popular uprisings in 2011, Tunisia did not immediately revert to authoritarianism or descend into civil war. Instead, after its longtime dictator fled, an interim government held free and fair elections. The new, democratically elected regime adopted a liberal constitution and allowed civil society and independent media to flourish.
By now, however, that success has decisively unraveled. Last month, for the first time in 14 years, Tunisia held a sham presidential election, marked by extensive manipulation and repression. The incumbent, President Kais Saied, announced that he had won 90 percent of the vote. Tunisians have tried to protest Saied’s authoritarianism, kindling hope among observers that the country might return to its democratizing trajectory.
But the truth is that the collapse of Tunisia’s young democracy has been coming for a long time, and the problems that it encountered were a function of its early triumphs. Over time, the features that had helped the Arab Spring movement in Tunisia stand apart and bring real reform—most notably, Tunisian leaders’ willingness to share power—hamstrung the government and led to paralysis. The new democracy was unable to realize substantive reforms; the inability of Tunisia’s post-2014 power brokers to reform the economy in particular, combined with a growing sense among the electorate that elites were focused only on enhancing their own wealth, set the stage for an authoritarian takeover.
Saied, a scholar of constitutional law, was elected president democratically in 2019. But he soon began consolidating power by disbanding the parliament, suspending the constitution, and jailing opponents. In 2022, one of us wrote in Foreign Affairs that Tunisia’s model of democratic transition was “at death’s door.” It could be saved, we argued, only if foreign governments increased their support for Tunisian opposition and civil society and gave Tunisia enough money to “weather the painful side effects of the economic reforms needed to create long-term sustainable growth.”
Unfortunately, aid never materialized in the necessary quantity. And now it is too late for this kind of fix to make a big enough difference. Without outside support, pro-democracy activists inside the country faced increasing repression and were unable to convince the weary public that democracy was worth fighting for. Today, the wave of democracy in Tunisia that began with the Arab Spring is dead. To start a new movement, Tunisia’s civil society and its politicians must rebuild trust with the people and convince them, fundamentally, that democracy is more likely than autocracy to bring about the economic growth and stability the country needs.
ARAB FALL
Much of Tunisia’s success during the decade after 2011 can be credited to an active civil society and leaders who were willing to compromise. In short, a model of dialogue and consensus ushered the country out of dictatorship. But Tunisia’s 2014 constitution, which was designed to avoid an overconcentration of power, ended up hamstringing the democratic government’s decision-making. As a result, the government was unable to adopt structural economic reforms that could have addressed the rampant youth unemployment, rising inflation, and persistent corruption that had plagued Tunisia for decades. The legislature that was elected in 2019 was so dysfunctional that lawmakers ended up physically fighting each other while in session.
At first, Saied justified his repressive moves as temporary, arguing that the country was in the midst of a crisis and that other politicians were ill equipped to meet Tunisians’ needs. The public had grown frustrated with democracy’s failure to deliver economic dividends and saw Saied as someone who would break through the gridlock and stand up to corruption within the rest of the political class. So they initially supported him, even as he skirted the law. But in 2022, he organized a referendum to codify his extrajudicial policies in a new constitution. Few Tunisians bothered to vote, and the referendum passed.
Until that year, Tunisia’s main backers—the United States as well as the EU and its member states—were providing the country more than $1.3 billion in economic assistance annually. But the United States began to worry that continuing to provide this assistance might underwrite a dictator, so it cut its aid budget to Tunisia and chastised Saied for his most egregious behavior. Europe, meanwhile, became more invested in Tunisia’s ability to stem the outflow of migrants than in supporting the country’s democratization. It also cut its aid to the country but continued to fund border policing and remained largely silent on Saied’s repression. As a result, nongovernmental entities that could have benefited from continued assistance suffered. The two sides of the Atlantic were neither effective nor unified in their messaging to Saied as he unwound Tunisia’s democratic progress.
Saied’s regime is not only brutal; it is also mired in chaos.
Today, Tunisia increasingly looks like it did under Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the dictator Tunisians worked so hard to overthrow in 2011. There is little freedom of expression or of the press, and the security forces operate with near impunity. Despite facing no viable opposition ahead of his 2024 election, earlier this year Saied oversaw the arrests of at least a dozen would-be presidential candidates, several of whom received criminal sentences that banned their participation in electoral politics for life. One of the two candidates that the government had approved to run for president against Saied, Ayachi Zammel, was arrested in September and convicted on trumped-up charges of falsifying signatures to get his name on the ballot. He ran his campaign from prison, where he is set to remain for more than 30 years. Saied’s electoral commission also prohibited the country’s two most prominent domestic watchdogs from observing the election, accusing them of receiving “suspicious foreign funding”—a common populist trope.
Saied has jailed many other activists and opponents. Over the past two years, he has used a controversial 2022 law that criminalized the spread of “false news” to imprison Chaima Issa, a leader of the opposition movement National Salvation Front; Sami Ben Slama, a former member of Tunisia’s electoral commission; and the lawyer and political commentator Sonia Dahmani. In September 2023, in a particularly brazen move, the government corralled 51 people from across the political spectrum to stand trial in a single case. Accused of conspiring to overthrow the government, they face charges that could include the death penalty. Even Sihem Bensedrine, the former head of Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission—which was established to investigate human rights violations committed during the pre-revolutionary period—was arrested in August on the likely bogus charge that she accepted a bribe to falsify her commission’s final report, to the dismay of human rights organizations.
Saied’s regime is not only brutal; it is also mired in chaos. Saied represents no political party and rarely engages his advisers. Few of his cabinet appointees last more than a year in office. In August, he fired the prime minister, installing his fifth in less than five years, and initiated a broader cabinet reshuffle. A few weeks later, he replaced all of the country’s regional governors with little explanation or warning. This constant churn of senior officials means that most policies are now made by presidential decree with little to no input from other people or departments.
GET ’EM NEXT TIME
Frustrated with Saied’s power grabs, Tunisians are beginning to acknowledge his role in the escalating economic crisis and political stagnation plaguing their country. Tunisia’s overall unemployment rate stands at 16 percent and is much higher among women and young people; the country’s projected GDP growth for 2024 is less than two percent, and inflation is expected to top seven percent this year. Because Tunisians face so many of the same problems that they did under Ben Ali—corruption, inequality, police brutality, and unemployment—the longer Saied remains in office, the less he can sell himself as a political outsider. And he is losing the ability to scapegoat other politicians, because Tunisians know that he controls all the levers of government power.
The leader of Tunisia’s most important labor union, Noureddine Taboubi, has become increasingly vocal in his criticism of Saied. With a membership of over a million people—some eight percent of Tunisia’s total population—Taboubi’s union has the power to bring the already struggling economy to a standstill if it calls a strike. And despite Saied’s repression, antigovernment demonstrations do still break out. In the weeks before the election, thousands of Tunisians took to the streets under the umbrella of the newly formed Tunisian Network for Rights and Freedoms, chanting “Out with dictator Saied” and calling for the release of political prisoners.
Despite their disappointments with Tunisia’s democratic experiment, the country’s young people grew up in a climate of freedom that many are not willing to give up. But they no longer believe that voting will be a way to improve their lives. According to the Tunisian government, only 28 percent of the electorate cast ballots in October, compared with 49 percent in 2019. Young people in particular stayed at home. Instead, many young Tunisians understandably see migrating elsewhere as a better solution.
The longer Saied remains in office, the less he can sell himself as a political outsider.
There is still hope, however, that Tunisians can fix their country’s woes through the political process. According to Saied’s own constitution, the president is limited to two terms in office, meaning that he cannot run in the 2029 presidential election. Tunisians, therefore, have an opportunity—and an obligation—to build a new, more trustworthy and effective political class over the next five years. Although many Tunisian pro-democracy activists are now in exile in Europe or North America, they can create the foundation for new and revitalized political parties and movements that offer clear platforms to address the economic and social problems that have plagued the country since well before 2011.
Strong actions by Tunisia’s international partners are the missing element that could jump-start such a movement. Western governments should show the country’s remaining pro-democratic voices that they still have outside support by more forcefully condemning the heavy repression that defined the electoral campaign. Even small signals matter. Western leaders were right not to congratulate Saied on his sham victory. (Meanwhile, the leaders of China, Egypt, and Iran sent their best wishes.) The United States and European countries should fund human rights networks both inside and outside the country and should prepare for the possibility that Saied will cross certain redlines, such as executing a political prisoner or ordering the police to fire on protesters. Western countries could, for instance, prepare a list of people in Saied’s inner circle that they are ready to sanction if he crosses a redline. Saied has already dramatically upped the ante on his repression over the past few months, such as by arresting nearly every person who tried to run against him in the presidential elections.
It is not easy to face the fact that the Tunisian model of democratic transition, once considered the one bright spot in the dispiriting aftermath of the Arab Spring, has failed. The country’s revolution inspired millions of people across the Middle East to rise up against their own autocrats. But those who hope for the ultimate, enduring health of democracy in Tunisia must face it, because they must recognize that the next set of efforts to confront authoritarianism needs to go much further toward addressing the deepest economic and social injustices that Tunisians face. Saied has extinguished the country’s experiment with democracy—for now—but he should not rest easy. Although embattled Tunisians may feel worn down by Saied’s repression, they and the West must not succumb to disillusionment.
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