Five years ago, President Kais Saied walked onto a television screen, suspended parliament, and told Tunisians he was saving the country from imminent danger. Today, the promise of security has collided with a brutal reality. Protesters are flooding the streets, demanding his immediate removal while the country reels from devastating blackouts and systemic economic decline.
The narrative that a single strongman could fix a fractured democracy has unravelled. Let's look at what actually happened over the past half-decade, and why the current crisis goes far beyond routine political grumbling.
The Anatomy of a Power Grab
When Saied invoked Article 80 of the constitution on July 25, 2021, he insisted it was a temporary corrective measure. Critics immediately labeled it a coup. Time proved the critics right. What started as an emergency suspension morphed into a permanent restructuring of the Tunisian state.
Saied didn't just sideline lawmakers; he rewrote the constitution, dismantled the Supreme Judicial Council, and fired dozens of independent judges. Dissent quickly became a criminal offense. Tools like Decree 54—ostensibly meant to combat false news—turned into weapons against journalists, lawyers, and political opponents.
If you dared to criticize the presidency online, you risked a knock on the door and years behind bars. Mass trials and prolonged pretrial detentions became standard practice. The Arab Spring's lone surviving democracy was systematically dismantled from the top down.
When Infrastructure Meets Governance Failure
Political repression is only half the story. The real breaking point for ordinary citizens is the state's total failure to manage basic public services.
As the country marked this grim five-year milestone, parts of Tunisia suffered through a punishing heatwave paired with massive, multi-day electrical blackouts. Reports indicated that between 150 and 200 people died during these catastrophic power failures. Hospitals struggled to keep life-support machines running. AC units failed in suffocating summer temperatures.
When infrastructure collapses to this degree, people stop talking about abstract democratic principles and start focusing on survival. The anger on the streets isn't just coming from elite politicians losing their seats. It's coming from everyday people who realize that absolute concentration of power hasn't kept the lights on or put food on the table.
The Cost of Silencing the Opposition
Saied's strategy relied on the idea that eliminating political rivals would create stability. Instead, it created an echo chamber of executive control where mistakes go unchecked because no one is allowed to point them out.
Independent watchdogs and international human rights organizations have documented a sharp, structural decline in the rule of law. Political parties are marginalized, civil society groups face intense harassment, and public discourse has shriveled under the weight of self-censorship.
Yet, repression has limits. When citizens face deadly heatwaves without electricity, security crackdowns lose their grip. The calls for Saied to step down carry a new urgency because the stakes are no longer just about who controls parliament. They are about basic human survival.
The trajectory of Tunisia over the next few months will depend entirely on whether the security apparatus can continue to contain a populace that has lost its fear, or if the economic and infrastructure rot forces a real reckoning at the presidential palace.
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