Beneath Tunisia’s silence, public anger simmers 

Five years after Tunisian President Kais Saied’s dramatic power grab, few of the hopes that charged the region following the country’s landmark 2011 revolution remain intact.

The people’s sense of participation in forming a template for a new constitution and democratic order that followed the revolution has all but vanished.

Political debates that dominated the airwaves following the 2011 uprising have given way to sports and entertainment shows.

The economy – which served as both a springboard for the 2011 revolution and a pretext for Saied’s 2021 “self-coup” – has been left to deteriorate. As a heatwave and wildfires ravage the country, blackouts have become routine, kindling public anger.

On Saturday, thousands took to the streets of the capital to protest against what demonstrators saw as Saied’s increasingly autocratic hold on power and worsening living conditions, competing with those supporting his rule, who waved flags and called for the “traitors” to be jailed.

The country’s journalists, cowed by a sweeping crackdown on the media, shaped their coverage of the demonstrations accordingly.

Salsabil Chellali, Tunisia director at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera there is a growing sense that criticism of the government will not be tolerated.

“Five years ago, Kais Saied buried Tunisia’s democratic transition and dragged the country back into authoritarianism,” Chellali said.

“His record is one of human rights crisis: the dismantling of the rule of law, and the targeting of the opposition, civil society and the media in turn, to strip Tunisians of their civil and political rights and participation in public affairs. No critic is safe under his rule.”

Heatwave exposes lack of planning

The wildfires that continue to tear through the country are estimated to have destroyed 4,400 hectares (10,900 acres, or about two-thirds the size of Paris) of land, despite help from Italy and Algeria.

Staggered power cuts by state-owned electricity and gas company STEG, planned to offset the overwhelming demand for fans and air-conditioning amid the heatwave, are leading to the destruction of crops and damage to Tunisian industries.

“There is no plan for anything,” one Tunisia-based analyst, who asked to be quoted anonymously, fearing repression, told Al Jazeera.

“Typically, countries know that when summer comes, there will be increased demand for electricity and water, so they plan for it. In Tunisia, we have no money and no investment – and no plan.”

The situation goes beyond decaying infrastructure to an absence of central planning for emergencies such as this.

“It’s like we’re in a ship being captained by a man with no knowledge of sailing,” he said.

Nevertheless, the analyst added, Saied has retained support from some corners of society, who remember the legislative logjams and factionalism that marked the pre-coup parliament.

While ready to acknowledge the hardships caused by the power and water cuts, Saied’s supporters in parliament and the media have consistently framed the solution as one of reform rather than overhaul, contrasting the country’s present difficulties with those inflicted by the fractious pre-2022 parliament.

In parliament earlier this week, speaker Ibrahim Bouderbala urged citizens not to allow anger about water and power shortages to escalate, pointing to other countries that had recovered from similar crises through sound governance.

Saied has also said that power and water cuts “must end immediately” and he is closely monitoring the situation. He also warned that “the state will act firmly against anyone who tries to aggravate the situation in the country”.

Nearly all of Tunisia’s government critics have either been jailed or are in exile. Much of the leadership of Ennahdha, the pre-coup parliament’s largest party, is in jail, including the group’s 85-year-old leader, Rached Ghannouchi. Since Ghannouchi collapsed in detention last month, presumably due to the heat, his whereabouts and condition remain unknown.

Similarly, controversial legislation criminalising anything the state determines is “fake news” and a series of high-profile arrests have seen critical voices in the media silenced.

Most recently, one of the country’s highest-profile political commentators and satirists, Heythem El Mekki, was forced to flee Tunisia after being sentenced to a year’s imprisonment for commenting on a social media posted three years ago criticising failings at a Sfax hospital morgue.

“There’s censorship across the board,” said Hamza Meddeb, a Tunisian academic with the Carnegie Middle East Centre.

Power cuts now continue for up to 12 hours, leading to extreme economic and physical hardship for Tunisians.

“Livestock are dying. Restaurants are closing. Sick people are suffering and some of the old are actually dying,” Meddeb said.

“That anger has to go somewhere and it’s being aimed at the state-owned electricity and water companies, sometimes it’s aimed at the government, but never at the one figure who has control: the president.”

Meddeb, like many other Tunisian journalists and academics, has since left for France. But for those who remain behind, there is little option but to self-censor or deflect.

Little hope of reform

Saied’s entrenchment in Tunisia’s power structures appears to have been bolstered by the support of external actors.

The European Union (EU), wary of migrant crossings from Tunisia’s coast, has quietly prioritised stability over democratic backsliding. It has entered into several deals to support the Tunisian government, despite concerns raised by migration and rights groups.

Tunisia’s neighbours, Algeria and Libya, also have little appetite for a disorderly neighbour. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune pledged earlier this week to stand ready to defend Tunisia against “any threat” to its stability.

Riccardo Fabiani, the Crisis Group’s North Africa director, said under Saied, Tunisia will remain “lost in his own delusions, worldview … where everything that goes wrong is the result of a conspiracy against him”.

“Nearly all of Tunisia’s external partners have given up on reform entirely,” Fabiani said.

“Those that cling on, such as Italy – which has a stake in working with Tunisia on migration – say that they’re routinely frustrated by a bureaucracy that’s terrified of being perceived from above of having made any mistake, so nothing gets done.”

Al Jazeera reached out to the Tunisian Prime Minister’s Office for comment on this article but received no response.