Five years after Saied’s power grab, Tunisia’s old grievances resurface

Tunis, Tunisia – More than ۱۵ years after Tunisians rose up to topple longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, familiar grievances are again being heard on the streets from north to south.

A slogan from the ۲۰۱۱ revolution is being heard again: “employment, freedom and national dignity”.

This time, those demands are being fuelled by water cuts, electricity outages, rising prices, medicine shortages and a struggle to make ends meet, problems increasingly affecting Tunisians across social and economic divides.

But the anger is unfolding in a very different political environment.

The discontent comes as Tunisia marks five years since President Kais Saied suspended parliament, dismissed the government and began ruling by decree, moves he described as necessary to end years of political paralysis and corruption.

Many Tunisians welcomed the move at the time, frustrated with a political system that had failed to address the country’s economic problems after the ۲۰۱۱ revolution.

Five years later, many of those grievances remain while the political space for challenging those in power has narrowed sharply.

Old demands, new anger

The decade that followed Ben Ali’s ouster brought competitive elections and greater space for political parties and civil society, but it also brought frequent government changes, political disputes and little improvement in the lives of many Tunisians.

Unemployment remained high, particularly among young people and in the country’s interior. Public services remained weak while rising prices continued to put pressure on household incomes. By the end of ۲۰۲۰, unemployment stood at ۱۷.۴ percent, according to the World Bank.

Tunisia also faced serious security threats, including attacks and political assassinations, adding to economic pressures and hitting sectors such as tourism.

Those frustrations helped Saied build support as an outsider promising to break with the traditional political establishment and what many Tunisians saw as a dysfunctional system.

On July ۲۵, ۲۰۲۱, Saied suspended the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, dismissed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and lifted parliamentary immunity. He said he was acting to address a national crisis.

His opponents described the move as a coup.

Saied later dissolved parliament and oversaw the adoption of a new constitution in ۲۰۲۲ that significantly strengthened presidential powers.

Since then, opposition figures, journalists, lawyers and activists have been jailed or prosecuted in cases that rights groups describe as politically motivated. Civil society has faced increasing restrictions while critics have said institutional checks on presidential power have been weakened. Human Rights Watch, for example, has described the “conspiracy case” as part of a broader crackdown on dissent.

What is the “conspiracy case”?

The case centres on allegations by Tunisian authorities that opposition politicians, lawyers, activists and other public figures were involved in a conspiracy against state security and sought to destabilise the country and undermine the government. The defendants included figures from different parts of the political spectrum.

In April ۲۰۲۵, a Tunis court sentenced ۳۷ defendants to prison terms ranging from four to ۶۶ years. Human Rights Watch described the case as politically motivated and criticised the trial for failing to provide adequate due-process protections.

On November ۲۷, ۲۰۲۵, a Tunis appeals court upheld convictions against ۳۴ of the ۳۷ defendants, sentencing them to between five and ۴۵ years in prison, and acquitted three.

Human Rights Watch and other rights groups continued to criticise the proceedings and describe the case as part of a wider crackdown on dissent.

The authorities reject those accusations and maintain that the defendants were prosecuted for serious offences against state security.

But the political transformation has yet to produce the economic turnaround Saied promised.

Unfulfilled promises

Many of Tunisia’s economic problems predate Saied. Years of underinvestment, financial pressures and ageing infrastructure have left public utilities and other state services struggling to meet demand.

But those failures have become harder to separate from Saied’s record because he came to power promising that a stronger state could overcome the weaknesses of the old political system.

This summer, temperatures approached ۵۰ degrees Celsius (۱۲۲ degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of Tunisia, pushing electricity demand to record levels. Kairouan reached ۴۹.۸C (۱۲۱.۶F) on Thursday, according to the Tunisian Observatory for Weather and Climate. The Tunisian Company of Electricity and Gas introduced rotating power cuts in several regions, and the outages affected water-pumping stations in some areas.

Some people reported going days without running water. Bottled water shortages added to the pressure. Long queues formed outside shops and water trucks delivering supplies to some areas.

For Rebh, a ۴۰-year-old cleaner from Tunis, the demands are not about luxuries but about being able to afford and access the basics of everyday life.

“People are tired. They are choosing to cross the sea and die [trying to reach Europe] instead. I hope we can stand together and find a solution now,” she told Al Jazeera. “We are not asking for the impossible. This is about water and electricity. We want to live as humans. We are feeling dead while we’re still alive.”

For many Tunisians, the shortages are part of a broader squeeze on purchasing power that has made it increasingly difficult to afford basic necessities.

The extreme heat has also put pressure on an already strained health system as doctors warned of increased pressure on emergency departments.

The point, however, is not that Saied created Tunisia’s economic problems. He did not.

The question is whether the more centralised system he built has delivered the more effective government he promised.

A shrinking space for dissent

For journalist Manel Derbali, the change has been visible not only in the media but in the wider public space.

After the ۲۰۱۱ revolution, she said, Tunisians gained a new ability to speak openly and access information. Despite the protests and political turmoil of the period, journalists felt they were not alone in challenging those in power.

“After years of censorship and police repression, everything opened up. The journalist felt that the street was with you in one way or another,” Derbali said.

She said journalists also had channels to raise concerns about their working conditions and make proposals to officials, including through parliament and ministries, while access to decision-makers remained possible.

“After July ۲۵, all of these spaces became closed,” she said.

Derbali said journalists now struggle to obtain even basic responses from government institutions with official bodies sometimes leaving requests unanswered for months.

“Unfortunately, history is repeating itself, and we have returned to relying on citizens’ videos to investigate and verify information,” she said.

Her account reflects a broader concern among critics of Saied that the institutions and public spaces that emerged after the revolution have been steadily weakened.

Could economic anger become political?

The current protests are not limited to Tunisia’s traditional opposition.

The Nafas movement, which has organised recent demonstrations in Tunis, seeks to bring together political parties and independent figures beyond the country’s established opposition to Saied. Its protests have also attracted citizens who had not previously taken part in political demonstrations.

Rabii Qassem, a member of the Nafas collective, said comparisons between the past five years and the decade after the revolution should not be reduced to whether Tunisia was simply better or worse before Saied.

“I’m not saying that Tunisia between ۲۰۱۱ and ۲۰۲۱ was paradise,” he said. “There were very serious crises: unemployment, corruption, economic fragility, political conflicts and a failure to achieve a large part of the revolution’s goals.”

But according to Qassem, that period also brought gains, including greater freedom of expression and protest, a stronger civil society, a more diverse media and elections that allowed for peaceful transfers of power.

“After July ۲۵, the economic and social problems that already existed were not solved,” he said. “They were joined by a decline in political checks and balances, freedoms and the space for civil society.”

For Qassem, many of the demands raised in ۲۰۱۱ remain unresolved.

“Where is employment? Where is the water? Where are the public services? Where is the dignity?” he asked.

He said economic hardship and political repression have been increasingly feeding into each other as people struggling with rising prices and deteriorating services have also found fewer avenues to express their frustration.

That does not mean Tunisia is experiencing another ۲۰۱۱.

Many Tunisians remain wary of the political parties and politicians who dominated the decade after Ben Ali while Saied continues to have supporters who blame that period for years of economic stagnation and political instability.

Nor does every person angry about a water cut, electricity outage or rising price necessarily oppose the president.

But the protests show how economic and political grievances can increasingly overlap.

Before ۲۰۲۱, Tunisians could blame a democratic political system they saw as ineffective for failing to improve their lives.

After ۲۰۲۱, Saied dismantled much of that system and promised that a stronger presidency would deliver better government.

Five years later, many of the same grievances remain.

The difference is that the avenues for challenging them have become narrower.

“Employment, freedom and national dignity” was a demand of the revolution that ended Ben Ali’s rule.

Fifteen years later, Tunisians are again asking for jobs, basic services and greater freedoms – but now from a president who came to power promising to address the failures of the system that followed the revolution.