Unemployed Tunisians gave strongman a chance. Where are the jobs?
Eleven years on from a revolution that overthrew a dictatorship and inspired pro-democracy uprisings across the Arab world, young Tunisians concerned with a lack of economic opportunity are finding themselves in a frustratingly familiar position.
Tunisia’s democratically elected president, Kais Saied, waged a successful campaign and navigated his first two years in office by speaking directly to disillusioned young Tunisians. He vowed to clean up corruption, and railed against a broken political system and deadlocked parliament.
When he assumed emergency powers, suspended parliament, and scrapped the country’s constitution six months ago, his actions were seen as extinguishing the last remaining democratic flames of the Arab Spring. Yet young Tunisians celebrated his move as a course-correction.
Today, however, they are finding that the move from multiparty parliamentary politics to populism has provided no new answers to the socioeconomic woes that sparked their revolution in late 2010
