Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, which launched the Arab Spring, was for a decade one of its rare successes. But its 15th anniversary this week saw much of the opposition behind bars as the country returns to autocratic rule.
A lost revolution?
On December 17th, 2010, a Tunisian fruit seller named Mohamed Bouazizi, in despair over police harassment and official corruption, set himself on fire in the centre of his hometown of Sidi Bouzid. His protest was the spark that began Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, which overthrew the dictator Zine El Abadine Ben Ali after 26 years in power.
Tunisia’s was the first in a string of revolutions across North Africa and the Middle East that became known as the Arab Spring. Those in Libya and Syria ended in bloody civil wars and foreign military interventions while Egypt’s was followed by a return to authoritarianism under Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
Tunisia appeared to have bucked the trend as democracy and pluralism endured despite economic fragility and political polarisation. But the country marked the fifteenth anniversary of the revolution this week with much of the opposition in jail as an increasingly autocratic president Kais Saied concentrates power around himself.
Said was elected with an overwhelming mandate in 2019 but he staged a power grab two years later, suspending parliament and moving to rule by decree. He has sacked judges and cracked down on opposition leaders, journalists, civil society groups and human rights activists.
Last month saw 34 opposition politicians, activists and lawyers sentenced to between five and 45 years in prison for conspiring to overthrow Saied. Last week, opposition leader Abir Moussi was sentenced to 12 years in jail for a number of offences which she claims are trumped up.
Saied’s supporters were on the streets of Tunis this week expressing support for his crackdown on what he describes as “traitors and a corrupt elite”. But he faces further unrest after the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), the country’s biggest trade union confederation, called a general strike for January 21st.
The strike is in protest against a finance Bill that imposes wage increases well below inflation, amounting to a real terms pay cut, for public and private sector workers. The Bill was passed after Saied suspended negotiations with the UGTT, which represents more than 1 million workers, about a quarter of the country’s workforce.
None of Saied’s actions have affected the migration deal he signed with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in 2023, which has seen an 80 per cent reduction in irregular arrivals from Tunisia into Italy over the past two years.
The European Ombudsman found in 2024 that the Commission failed to disclose human rights risks before signing the deal and an Amnesty International report last October documented widespread violations of the rights of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants by the Tunisian authorities.
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