Tunisia, one of only two lighthouses of evolving democracy in North Africa, is suffering reversals
Tunisia President Kais Saied casts his ballot at a polling station in Tunis, Tunisia, July 25 2022. Picture: TUNISIAN PRESIDENCY/REUTERS
Tipping points in history are usually impossible to predict: not one of the smartest observers of Arab affairs expected that the self-immolation of 26-year-old street fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunis on December 17 2010 in protest at a petty official’s confiscation of his wares would trigger a series of popular revolts against autocratic regimes radiating out from Tunisia to countries as far-flung as Bahrain.
Yet as the July days showed, once the genie of unrest is uncorked even the planners can’t predict what will occur Still, Tunisia’s transformation after January 2011 was truly remarkable. By the time I worked there in 2019, a cosmopolitan air prevailed in the capital, Tunis, where the races — Arab, Amazigh, black and European — co-mingled easily on the beaches, the roads were smartly paved and the electricity uninterrupted, while it possessed one of the Arab world’s two democratic constitutions, with an openly gay lawyer even throwing his hat into the ring for the presidential election.
On November 25, Saied dissolved the new ministry of local affairs, which had overseen the municipal councils to which administrative powers had been devolved, and restored centralised control to the ministry of the interior, replacing 18 of 24 provincial governors with his own men. On February 6 2022, he dissolved the independent Supreme Judicial Council and empowered himself to pick replacement benches.
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