On January 31, 2026, Tunisian President Kais Saied extended the country’s state of emergency once more, now marking ten consecutive years of its being in effect. While he initially framed this as a temporary measure when he first extended it in 2021, its continual renewal goes to show how Saied has consolidated authority and normalized extraordinary powers as standard, routine tools of governance.

The Origin of Tunisia’s Democracy

Emerging from mass protests in 2011, also referred to as the Jasmine Revolution or the Tunisian Arab Spring, Tunisia’s turn toward democracy was the result of more than five decades of authoritarian rule. The revolution ousted President Ben Ali after years of political gridlock and economic crisis, which caused his regime to be delegitimized. Weary of either the secularists or the Islamists assuming total control post-revolution, political elites decided compromise was the safest option. This agreement was formalized in the 2014 Constitution, creating a semi-parliamentary system in which power is shared among a prime minister, president, and elected parliament.

Today, however, Tunisia’s democracy has yet to consolidate and instead erodes by the day. The country’s ongoing crisis can be understood as a result of the following: a divided and gridlocked political system that failed to deliver meaningful economic change; weak domestic and international consequences for anti-democratic behavior; and institutions lacking enforceable checks and balances. Tunisia’s trajectory, therefore, is not simply about the rise of a power-hungry populist, but also about what happens when a burgeoning democracy lacks the necessary foundation required to defend itself from bad actors. 

From Populist Outsider to President

While Tunisia’s post-2014 system appeared promising, by 2019, economic crises and public dissatisfaction were ubiquitous. Fortunately for Kais Saied, he was able to tap into this frustration and sweep the presidential election with his populist, anti-corruption, and anti-elite platform. Saied, an example of what might be called “disloyal opposition,” initially received broad public support for shaking up what many saw as an ineffective status quo. And in 2021, as COVID-19 worsened Tunisia’s economic woes, Saied used his popular legitimacy to declare that the military would take over the pandemic response. Then, just four days later, on July 25, 2021, Saied doubled down and staged a “self-coup”. Using constitutional emergency powers as a legal justification, Saied fired his prime minister, suspended all of parliament, and stripped members of parliament of their immunity.

Saied’s Consolidation of Power Continues

Since declaring emergency powers in 2021, Saied has turned Tunisia’s political system into one that has not abolished institutions outright, but has weaponized them in a significant way– a trend continuing into 2026. This exemplifies Levitsky and Ziblatt’s argument that, in the modern day, democratic erosion occurs more through legal and constitutional mechanisms (i.e., “using and abusing institutions”) rather than through overt, violent power-grabs. For example, in 2022, Saied drafted a new constitution that weakened the role of parliament, crippled judicial independence, and further concentrated authority in the presidency. Since then, he has only continued on a path of executive aggrandizement, including his frequent use of rule by decree. Still caring about the appearance of democracy, Saied put the 2022 constitution to a referendum, but due to mass boycotts, turnout was abysmally low. Similarly, elections in the country have continued, but are far less competitive now that party lists have been banned, the election authority’s independence has been weakened, and candidacy requirements have grown stricter. While formal aspects of democracy remain, they lose substance as political institutions are hollowed out and the executive grows stronger, thereby pushing Tunisia toward the bounds of competitive authoritarianism.

Horizontal accountability has also suffered as judges are dismissed, parliament is sidelined, and opposition figures, including journalists and everyday people, are arrested (as recently as February 4, 2026, in fact). In his strategic weaponization of law enforcement and the judiciary, in tandem with the lack of a constitutional court to oversee such abuse, Saied intimidates opponents by implicitly raising the cost of dissent. The durability of Tunisia’s erosion can also be explained through Weingast’s “self-enforcing equilibrium.” Back during Tunisia’s democratic transition, civil society organizations were plentiful and helped to coordinate a collective defense of democracy. Today, however, civil society is at an all-time low as protest fatigue, fear of repression, and widespread cynicism convince people to leave the country rather than stay and fight for something better. Compounding these domestic factors are several international ones that do very little to reinforce democratic constraints for the country, such as their lack of democratic neighbors, for example. On top of this, whatever linkage and leverage Tunisia once had to the West has begun to be replaced by deepening economic and security ties with China and Russia. At the same time, Tunisia has rejected EU monetary support and pulled out of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights as of March 2025. Without strong external pressure or regional democratic models to emulate, Tunisia’s erosion goes unchecked by international constraints, therefore emboldening Saied to act with impunity.

On the ground, Tunisia now faces a questionable future in which elections are devoid of competition, the judiciary has little independence from the president, opposition and media figures are subject to arrest for lukewarm criticisms of the regime, and the public increasingly feels hopeless and disillusioned.

What the Rest of the World Can Learn

Tunisia demonstrates that democratic erosion does not only come down to the presence of a bad actor like Saied, but also the absence of effective constraints to contain these bad actors if and when they succeed in obtaining power. In this case, erosion succeeded due to the simultaneous failures of a divided, ineffective political system, little to no constraints imposed either domestically or internationally, and institutions lacking strong, enforceable capabilities. Ultimately, Tunisia’s transformation from a democratic success story to a repressive authoritarian regime shows that when democracies lack a strong foundation, they can be undone swiftly– even by those who once claimed they would be the ones to repair it.