--- title: The Sorry State of Tunisia's Democracy description: President Saied's near-certain—and certainly illegitimate—reelection in the Oct. 6 election is a sad reminder of the Arab Spring's failure. canonical: https://time.com/7020023/tunisia-kais-saied-democracy/ author: Ian Bremmer article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-09-19T11:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T18:16:18.561Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The Sorry State of Tunisia's Democracy og:description: President Kais Saied's near-certain—and certainly illegitimate—reelection in the Oct. 6 election is a sad reminder of the Arab Spring's failure. og:url: https://time.com/7020023/tunisia-kais-saied-democracy/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2a5416c30e0d840f/698a5ad0d075331cc1e7132d/GettyImages-1243985661.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: TUNISIA-POLITICS-DEMO og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Sorry State of Tunisia's Democracy twitter:description: President Kais Saied's near-certain—and certainly illegitimate—reelection in the Oct. 6 election is a sad reminder of the Arab Spring's failure. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2a5416c30e0d840f/698a5ad0d075331cc1e7132d/GettyImages-1243985661.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Sorry State of Tunisia's Democracy > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=7985f666-e65c-4136-a101-985053386d16&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1)  by [Ian Bremmer](https://time.com/author/ian-bremmer/)  ## Ian Bremmer Sep 19, 2024 11:00 AM UTC  Supporters of the Tunisian Free Destourian Party wave national flags and raise placards during a demonstration against President Kais Saied in the capital Tunis, on Oct. 15, 2022. Supporters of the Tunisian Free Destourian Party wave national flags and raise placards during a demonstration against President Kais Saied in the capital Tunis, on Oct. 15, 2022. Fethi Belaid—AFP/Getty Images  by [Ian Bremmer](https://time.com/author/ian-bremmer/)  ## Ian Bremmer Sep 19, 2024 11:00 AM UTC The fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi’s [self-immolation](https://time.com/5926292/arab-spring-future/) 14 years ago inspired Tunisians to topple their longtime dictator and kicked off the 2011 Arab Spring. Of all the countries in the region that [caught the revolutionary bug](https://time.com/5926742/arab-spring-decade/), Tunisia was the only one that managed to build a multiparty democracy with separation of powers and freedom of expression, for a while becoming the poster child of successful democratization. Then [came President Kais Saied](https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2022/07/one-year-later-tunisias-president-has-reversed-nearly-a-decade-of-democratic-gains?lang=en), an uncharismatic constitutional lawyer, who was elected in 2019 on a populist anti-corruption platform that played to Tunisians’ post-revolutionary disillusion with political gridlock and economic stagnation. Five years later, the birthplace of the Arab Spring has become the scene of [alarming democratic backsliding](https://freedomhouse.org/country/tunisia). The first major sign of trouble was in 2021, when Saied used the COVID-19 pandemic to centralize his power. The Tunisian President [suspended the constitution, fired his Prime Minister](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2023/07/human-rights-under-assault-two-years-after-president-saieds-power-grab/), and invoked emergency protocols to govern by decree. In 2022, he went further still, [dissolving parliament and rewriting the constitution](https://www.euronews.com/2021/07/26/tunisian-president-fires-prime-minister-after-violent-protests). The persecution of opposition politicians, critics, activists, journalists, and union leaders has only increased since. That includes [Rached Ghannouchi](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/1/tunisian-opposition-leader-rached-ghannouchi-sentenced-to-three-years), leader of the main opposition Ennahda Party; [Lotfi Mraihi](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/4/tunisia-opposition-leader-lotfi-mraihi-arrested), head of the Republican Union Party; and [Abir Moussi](https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20240806-potential-saied-opponent-jailed-in-lead-up-to-tunisian-presidential-elections), president of the Free Destourian Party. All three are now behind bars on trumped-up charges. With Saied’s term [set to expire](https://apnews.com/article/tunisia-election-president-kais-saied-cffe8270e27a69b36b8896ce8ff5f3ce) on Oct. 23, Tunisia’s strongman is seeking five more years as President in new elections he scheduled for Oct. 6\. But having spent his entire tenure dismantling democratic checks and balances, consolidating power, and muzzling dissent, this contest will be neither free nor fair. All credible would-be challengers to Saied have either been imprisoned, scared into exile, or excluded from running. On Sept. 2, Tunisia’s supposedly independent electoral commission—whose seven members were appointed by the President—approved [just two](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz072yl775zo) relatively unknown candidates, in defiance of an order by the country’s highest court to allow three additional candidates to run. One of them, Ayachi Zammel, has since been [detained](https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/tunisian-judge-frees-presidential-candidate-ayachi-zammel-2024-09-05/) and charged with falsifying ballot signatures (it is unclear whether he will be allowed to run). Despite some public concern about Saied’s autocratic drift, he remains relatively popular. His [xenophobic](https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/02/tunisia-kais-saied-racism-migrants-xenophobia/) and anti-establishment rhetoric resonates strongly with a large segment of the population that believes democracy did little to improve their living standards. Saied’s biggest vulnerability comes from the [worsening socioeconomic conditions](https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/north-africa/tunisia/234-tunisias-challenge-avoiding-default-and-preserving) most Tunisians have experienced under his rule. After all, the one thing people dislike more than a dictator is a dictator who fails to deliver the goods. While Saied has so far managed to stave off a sovereign default on Tunisia’s bloated foreign debt without resorting to a maligned but [much-needed IMF loan](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-25/tunisia-default-averted-despite-saied-s-rejection-of-imf-bailout), this has come at the cost of higher inflation, slower economic growth, and frequent [food and fuel shortages](https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/01/the-buildup-to-a-crisis-current-tensions-and-future-scenarios-for-tunisia?lang=en¢er=middle-east). The government is also increasingly resorting to borrowing from the once-independent central bank as well as local banks to cover its growing financing needs, which will further drive up inflation and create financial risks. As economic challenges deepen, citizens’ trust in their government will falter. Demands for change will build. Protests and repression may follow. Perhaps there will even be calls for new elections. But Tunisians will have little recourse after Kais Saied’s near-certain—and certainly illegitimate—reelection this October entrenches Tunisia’s autocracy and marks the definitive end of the Arab Spring’s last surviving democratic experiment. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7020023/tunisia-kais-saied-democracy/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7020023/tunisia-kais-saied-democracy/"},"headline":"The Sorry State of Tunisia's Democracy","datePublished":"2024-09-19T11:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T18:16:18.561Z","description":"President Kais Saied's near-certain—and certainly illegitimate—reelection in the Oct. 6 election is a sad reminder of the Arab Spring's failure.","url":"https://time.com/7020023/tunisia-kais-saied-democracy/","keywords":["world affairs","freelance"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2a5416c30e0d840f/698a5ad0d075331cc1e7132d/GettyImages-1243985661.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ian Bremmer","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/ian-bremmer/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2a5416c30e0d840f/698a5ad0d075331cc1e7132d/GettyImages-1243985661.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TUNISIA-POLITICS-DEMO","caption":"TUNISIA-POLITICS-DEMO","creditText":"Fethi Belaid—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/world-affairs/","name":"world affairs"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7020023/tunisia-kais-saied-democracy/","name":"The Sorry State of Tunisia's Democracy"}}]}] ```