When people think about how democracy dies, they often imagine violent military coups. However, in the modern world, democracy usually dies slowly, legally, and from within.
Tunisia was once celebrated as the sole success story of the 2011 Arab Spring.
Quantitative data clearly reflects this democratic backsliding:
After overthrowing a dictator, the country built democratic institutions and drafted a progressive constitution. Today, that transition has unravelled. Tunisia’s democracy did not collapse from external aggression; it was dismantled from within by an elected president, Kais Saied, who leveraged public frustration and legal loopholes to centralize power.
• Freedom House (2025): Tunisia’s score dropped to 44/100 (“Partly Free”), down from 51 the previous year, while its Political Rights score fell to 11/40.
• EIU Democracy Index (2024): Tunisia’s score fell to 4.71, demonstrating a steady downward trend toward authoritarianism.
Public Frustration and the Rise of Kais Saied
Understanding this collapse requires examining public dissatisfaction. Between 2011 and 2021, Tunisia suffered from severe economic distress, high youth unemployment, and persistent political gridlock in parliament. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, it overwhelmed the public health system. Exhausted by corruption and political paralysis, citizens increasingly sought a strong leader to stabilize the country.
In 2019, voters elected Kais Saied, a constitutional law professor and political outsider. Saied campaigned as an anti-corruption champion standing against a broken political establishment.
The July 25th Intervention: A Legal Coup
On July 25, 2021, President Saied initiated a “self-coup” by invoking Article 80 of the constitution—an emergency provision intended to protect the republic. He suspended parliament, dismissed the prime minister, and consolidated executive authority.
Rather than relying on overt violence, Saied systematically dismantled democratic institutions through incremental legal mechanisms:
1. Ruling by Decree: He granted himself the authority to enact laws without parliamentary oversight.
2. Eliminating Judicial Independence: He dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council and dismissed judges who opposed his directives.
3. Rewriting the Constitution: In 2022, he replaced the 2014 democratic constitution with a new draft that established a “hyper-presidential” system lacking meaningful checks and balances.
4. Suppressing Opposition: Authorities initiated targeted arrests of political opponents, journalists, and activists.
As political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt (2018) note, modern democratic backsliding occurs incrementally. Autocrats utilize legal frameworks to dismantle democratic safeguards step by step.
Why Tunisia Matters
Tunisia’s backsliding offers key lessons for modern comparative politics:
• Constitutional limitations: A progressive constitution alone cannot preserve a political system if citizens lose confidence in democracy’s ability to deliver economic security.
• Populist exploitation: Institutional failure and political gridlock directly fuel populism, allowing leaders to frame institutional checks as unnecessary obstacles.
• Empirical evidence: Data from Freedom House (44/100) and the EIU Democracy Index (4.71) confirm that executive power grabs directly erode political rights and civil liberties.
Conclusion
Tunisia illustrates the inherent fragility of democratic systems. Democracy requires more than holding elections; it must deliver tangible results to maintain public trust. Without that trust, electorates may willingly surrender power to an executive who destabilizes democracy from within.
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