🇹🇳 TUNISIA STABILITY TRACKER

President Kais Saied, elected 2019, staged a self-coup on 25 July 2021 — suspending parliament, dismissing the prime minister, and ruling by decree. A 2022 referendum installed a hyper-presidential constitution that gutted parliament and the judiciary.

This marked a sharp democratic reversal for the country that birthed the Arab Spring (the 2011 Jasmine Revolution). Opposition figures, including Ennahda (Islamist) leaders, have been jailed.

Tunisia faces a severe fiscal crisis: high debt, strained subsidies, periodic shortages of basic goods, and default risk. A ~$1.9B IMF program stalled after Saied rejected what he called foreign "diktats."

The economy leans on EU and Gulf (notably Saudi) support amid high unemployment and inflation.

Tunisia is a major transit and departure point for sub-Saharan migrants crossing to Europe (Lampedusa). A 2023 EU–Tunisia pact tied funding to migration control; Saied's February 2023 anti-migrant rhetoric drew international criticism and sparked violence against migrants.

Tunisia has a strong historic civil society — its national dialogue Quartet won the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize — and a secular Bourguiba/Ben Ali legacy. The tension among Saied's populism, the Islamists, and battered democratic institutions defines the political contest.

Relatively low violence, but institutional erosion plus economic fragility plus migration pressure is the watch. Power has concentrated steadily around the presidency since 2021.