There was tension hanging in the air as I walked through Tunisia’s capital city, Tunis, in July, just months before the country’s latest presidential election. The conversations I had in cafes and markets confirmed people’s uncertainty and apprehension about the state of their country.
Tunisia was the location of an uprising against corruption, poverty and political repression in 2011 that ousted longtime autocrat Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. The uprising, which came to be known as the Jasmine Revolution, inspired a wave of pro-democracy protests throughout the Middle East and North Africa called the Arab spring.
But some Tunisian journalists, lawyers and members of non-governmental organisations have argued that the country has slowly returned to a dictatorship. Tunisia’s current president, Kais Saied, was elected democratically in 2019. However, since then he has suspended parliament and backed a referendum on a new constitution that has allowed him to rule by decree.
