Five Years After President Kais Saied's Power Grab, Tunisia Faces Resurgences of Economic and Political Discontent

Demonstrators march in Tunis during a protest against President Kais Saied on August 20, 2026. More than 15 years after Tunisians rose up to topple longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, familiar grievances are again being heard on the streets from north to south. A slogan from the 2011 revolution is echoing once more: "employment, freedom and national dignity." This time, those demands are being fuelled by water cuts, electricity outages, rising prices, medicine shortages and a struggle to make ends meet, problems increasingly affecting Tunisians across social and economic divides.

The anger is unfolding in a very different political environment. The discontent comes as Tunisia marks five years since President Kais Saied suspended parliament, dismissed the government and began ruling by decree, moves he described as necessary to end years of political paralysis and corruption. Many Tunisians welcomed the move at the time, frustrated with a political system that had failed to address the country's economic problems after the 2011 revolution. Five years later, many of those grievances remain while the political space for challenging those in power has narrowed sharply.

The decade that followed President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's ouster brought competitive elections and greater space for political parties and civil society, but it also brought frequent government changes, political disputes and little improvement in the lives of many Tunisians. Unemployment remained high, particularly among young people and in the country's interior. Public services remained weak while rising prices continued to put pressure on household incomes. By the end of 2020, unemployment stood at 17.4 percent, according to the World Bank.

Tunisia also faced serious security threats, including attacks and political assassinations, adding to economic pressures and hitting sectors such as tourism. Those frustrations helped President Kais Saied build support as an outsider promising to break with the traditional political establishment and what many Tunisians saw as a dysfunctional system. On July 25, 2021, President Kais Saied suspended the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, dismissed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and lifted parliamentary immunity. He said he was acting to address a national crisis, while his opponents described the move as a coup. President Kais Saied later dissolved parliament and oversaw the adoption of a new constitution in 2022 that significantly strengthened presidential powers.

Since then, opposition figures, journalists, lawyers and activists have been jailed or prosecuted in cases that rights groups describe as politically motivated. Civil society has faced increasing restrictions while critics have said institutional checks on presidential power have been weakened. Human Rights Watch, for example, has described the "conspiracy case" as part of a broader crackdown on dissent.

The case centres on allegations by Tunisian authorities that opposition politicians, lawyers, activists and other public figures were involved in a conspiracy against state security and sought to destabilise the country and undermine the government. The defendants included figures from different parts of the political spectrum. In April 2025, a Tunis court sentenced 37 defendants to prison terms ranging from four to 66 years. Human Rights Watch described the case as politically motivated and criticised the trial for failing to provide adequate due-process protections. On November 27, 2025, a Tunis appeals court upheld convictions against 34 of the 37 defendants, sentencing them to between five and 45 years in prison, and acquitted three. Human Rights Watch and other rights groups continued to criticise the proceedings and describe the case as part of a wider crackdown on dissent. The authorities reject those accusations and maintain that the defendants were prosecuted for serious offences against state security.

This summer, temperatures approached 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of Tunisia, pushing electricity demand to record levels. Kairouan reached 49.8C (121.6F) on Thursday, according to the Tunisian Observatory for Weather and Climate. The Tunisian Company of Electricity and Gas introduced rotating power cuts in several regions, and the outages affected water-pumping stations in some areas. Some people reported going days without running water, and bottled water shortages added to the pressure. For Rebh, a 40-year-old cleaner from Tunis, the demands are not about luxuries but about being able to afford and access the basics of everyday life.

For journalist Manel Derbali, the change has been visible not only in the media but in the wider public space. After the 2011 revolution, she said, Tunisians gained a new ability to speak openly and access information. However, she noted that after July 25, all of those spaces became closed, and journalists now struggle to obtain even basic responses from government institutions.

The current protests are not limited to Tunisia's traditional opposition. The Nafas movement, which has organised recent demonstrations in Tunis, seeks to bring together political parties and independent figures beyond the country's established opposition to President Kais Saied. Rabii Qassem, a member of the Nafas collective, said that after July 25, the economic and social problems that already existed were not solved, and were instead joined by a decline in political checks and balances, freedoms and the space for civil society. As public frustration continues to mount, the demands of the 2011 revolution for employment, freedom and national dignity remain as pressing as ever under President Kais Saied's administration.