Why populist president retains support amid Tunisia’s enduring poverty
Kais Saied, the autocratic president who promised to succeed where Tunisia’s nascent democracy had failed, retains a hold on power and popular support even as the country enters a second year of record inflation, food shortages, and potential insolvency.
On the recent anniversary of the 2011 democratic revolution that Mr. Saied has all but snuffed out, several hundred members of the anti-coup National Front for Salvation and Islamist Ennahda protested in downtown Tunis, chanting, “We will sacrifice our life for liberty,” and “Stand together against populism and the return of dictatorship.”
Yet few Tunisians have heeded their call.
Many are
