Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi self-immolated on December 17, 2010, sparking protests that would topple President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and help ignite the Arab Spring across the Middle East and North Africa. The demonstrators demanded dignity, employment, and an end to corruption. Fifteen years later, many of those same grievances are once again bringing Tunisians into the streets.
On Oct. 23, police clashed with protesters in Tunis and other parts of the country following the deaths of civilians at the hands of the security forces, while anger over deteriorating living conditions and poor public services continues to grow. The unrest follows the largest anti-government demonstration in years on Oct. 17, when thousands gathered in the capital to oppose President Kaïs Saïed’s concentration of power and restrictions on political opposition.
Strikingly, the assembled protestors chanted the very same slogan that they first made famous during the Jasmine Revolution of 2010-2011: “The people want the fall of the regime.” Their choice underscored the failure of the country’s post-revolutionary political leaders to address the same economic and political frustrations that brought people into the streets back then. Now Tunisians are challenging a president who came to power promising to fix the system so many of them had come to reject.
The slow death of the Arab Spring
Following Ben Ali’s ousting in 2011, Tunisia legalized previously banned political parties and held its first free elections. Ennahda, a political Islamist movement influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood, won the largest share of seats in the first elections and became the leading force in the first post-Arab Spring government. But the country’s transition to democracy soon ran up against serious obstacles.
The democratic breakthrough did not resolve the country’s underlying problems. Two major terrorist attacks in 2015 heightened concerns about domestic security, while unemployment, regional disparities, and declining living standards continued to frustrate the public.
In 2013, the assassinations of opposition figures Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi intensified political polarization and public protests. Ennahda eventually agreed to relinquish government leadership to a technocratic caretaker government, helping pave the way for a new constitution in 2014. The compromise demonstrated that Tunisia’s political factions could preserve the transition through negotiation, a process later recognized when the political figures involved in the talks received the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize.
Yet the democratic breakthrough did not resolve the country’s underlying problems. Two major terrorist attacks in 2015 heightened concerns about domestic security, while unemployment, regional disparities, and declining living standards continued to frustrate the public. Political compromise had preserved democracy, but it had not delivered many other of the improvements Tunisians expected.
These failures created an opening for Saïed. Elected president in 2019 on an anti-establishment platform, he benefited from growing disillusionment with political parties and a system many Tunisians viewed as ineffective. According to Alissa Pavia, a nonresident senior fellow in the Atlantic Council’s North Africa Program, corruption scandals involving the political elite, as well as successive governments’ inability to improve economic conditions, helped undermine public confidence in the post-revolutionary system. Saïed presented himself as an outsider who could confront corruption and restore accountability.
While Saïed dismantled checks on his authority, the economic grievances that had undermined confidence in the post-revolutionary system remained.
That appeal did not necessarily mean voters wanted an authoritarian alternative. As Pavia explains, many Tunisians were looking for practical improvements: better job prospects for their children, greater affordability, and an end to political infighting. His election in 2019 reflected those expectations, rather than necessarily constituting a mandate for the concentration of power that followed.
In July 2021, Saïed suspended parliament and moved to consolidate presidential power, presenting his actions as a way to break the political deadlock and restore effective government. While he dismantled checks on his authority, the economic grievances that had undermined confidence in the post-revolutionary system remained.
The economic grievances that never went away
Tunisia’s economic frustrations did not begin with Kaïs Saïed. Before the 2011 revolution, the country experienced moderate growth, averaging roughly 3 to 4% annually, but its economy remained constrained by heavy regulation, state intervention, and policies favoring export-oriented industries at the expense of broader domestic productivity. According to Sabina Henneberg of The Washington Institute, Tunisia’s “overbearing state” and interventionist regulatory system have discouraged investment while allowing corruption to flourish.
Weak growth, limited private investment, and mounting public debt further undermined confidence, creating an opening for Saïed’s promises to tackle corruption and restore effective government.
These structural problems persisted after the revolution. The country’s new political leaders proved incapable of addressing unemployment, particularly among young people and university graduates, and regional inequality between the more prosperous coast and the historically marginalized interior. Weak growth, limited private investment, and mounting public debt further undermined confidence, creating an opening for Saïed’s promises to tackle corruption and restore effective government.
Saïed’s economic policies have so far yielded little. His resistance to an IMF-backed financing agreement has limited Tunis’ access to international borrowing, while reliance on domestic borrowing has diverted funds that could otherwise support private businesses and investment, potentially contributing to inflation. Saïed has also promised to recover public funds allegedly stolen by former officials and businesspeople. Henneberg notes these efforts require functioning judicial and investigative institutions. Instead, arrests on questionable grounds and concerns over due process have raised doubts about how those promises will be fulfilled.
Other economic measures have also produced unintended consequences. Henneberg points to a poorly implemented effort to end subcontracting practices, which, she says, has driven away international employers.
Henneberg says that dissatisfaction with Saïed is “definitely growing” in Tunisia, and it is unclear whether he has an answer to satisfy it. Nor does the current opposition seem to harbor any figures capable of representing a serious alternative. The October 2026 protests were led by the UGTT, the national trade union, which boasts over a million members and played a vital role in earlier stages of the transition. But the union’s recent success in mobilizing diverse opposition forces has yet to translate into a concrete plan for a solution to the country’s entrenched problems.
Pavia says that dissatisfaction with Saïed does not automatically translate into confidence in the opposition. After years of frustration with the parties that governed following the revolution, any alternative will have to demonstrate not only a commitment to political freedoms but also a credible plan for improving living standards.
A changed political landscape
While the return of revolutionary slogans is a powerful symbol, it does not mean Tunisia has returned to the same political circumstances that caused its collapse in 2011.
In 2011, Tunisians challenged an authoritarian government. Today, they are confronting a president who gained support by promising to correct the failures of the post-revolutionary system. The two moments differ politically but share a central problem: a government’s ability to deliver economic improvements while remaining accountable to its citizens.
The continuing civil activism of Tunisians is a promising sign. It should serve as a reminder that solving the country’s deeper problems will be impossible without maintaining the democratic freedoms that remain dear to its citizens.
