On the eve of the January 14, 2011 revolution, Tunisia was neither an ideal democracy nor the economic “dragon” of the southern Mediterranean that official propaganda portrayed it as. Public and individual freedoms were restricted, clientelism was widespread, development was unequal and unbalanced, and the regime controlled everyday life with an iron grip.
The “Tunisian model” was marked by serious imbalances, many of which helped spur the revolution. Regional and social disparities in the distribution of wealth and opportunities created a growing sense of injustice among large sections of the population. When protests erupted following the mistreatment of a street vendor in Sidi Bouzid by municipal police officers and his subsequent suicide, they developed into a nationwide uprising that ultimately transformed the country’s political, social and economic order.
But acknowledging the injustice Tunisians endured before 2011 should not obscure another reality: The state had a cohesive administration, managed an open economy that maintained its main macroeconomic balances to some extent, and provided public services that met citizens’ needs to some degree.
The economy was far from delivering prosperity for all, and its benefits were distributed unfairly. But it remained cohesive and achieved steady growth averaging 4 percent annually during the decade before the revolution. That rate fell by half between 2011 and 2021.
The revolution opened a new chapter, bringing political pluralism, freedom of expression and democratic institutions. But this political transition was not accompanied by an economic one. Governments, coalitions and policies changed without putting the economy on a path towards fair and sustainable growth. Instead, economic indicators deteriorated, public-finance imbalances worsened and creating wealth and jobs became increasingly difficult.
Yet despite this decline and severe difficulties, particularly during COVID-19, Tunisia had not before 2021 reached the point where the state could no longer perform its basic functions or the economy’s fundamental balances were severely disrupted, as happened afterwards.
Tunisians are now living through the summer of 2026 amid persistent electricity and water cuts, a collapsed health system unable to provide basic care and essential medicines, and purchasing power at its lowest levels, leaving citizens barely able to obtain basic foodstuffs.
How did Tunisia reach a situation unprecedented in the history of the post-independence state? And how did promises of economic salvation, self-reliance, recovering stolen funds and building a new economic model lead to a reality in which citizens cannot find enough water for themselves and their families?
Between the allure of rhetoric and the exercise of power
Kais Saied came to power in 2019 at a moment of political exhaustion, after years of conflict among the elites and amid growing economic and social difficulties that had caused many Tunisians to lose confidence in the political class.
He did not come with a coherent political philosophy nor a recognised school of economic thought. Instead, he offered populist rhetoric that reduced the complexities of Tunisia’s economy and society to a simple proposition: Tunisia was not poor; its wealth had been plundered and monopolised by corrupt figures and businesspeople associated with the old system. The state simply had to recover this money and redistribute it to the regions and groups deprived of it.
Fighting corruption therefore became a central pillar of his rhetoric, presented not merely as part of institutional reform but as an approach almost sufficient in itself to rebuild the economy.
From this came the major promises: Recovering stolen funds, creating community companies as a new form of ownership, and breaking with international financial institutions and sovereign rating agencies through “self-reliance”.
These ideas appealed to many Tunisians because they reduced a complex crisis to identifiable culprits and causes, but also because they drew on genuine disillusionment with the post-revolutionary political elite and real problems of corruption, poor governance and regional and social inequality.
In July 2021, Saied took control of all powers, dissolved constitutional institutions and silenced opposition voices in the name of implementing a project he promised would place Tunisia on a new historic path.
What, then, has become of that project: Fighting corruption to recover wealth, retrieving stolen funds to finance development, redistributing wealth to marginalised regions, establishing community companies owned and managed by local communities, and building an economy more independent of the outside world?
What has it produced once rhetoric and promises gave way to the exercise of power?
The numbers are stubborn
Whatever one’s political position on Kais Saied, the economic figures provide a clear measure of the results.
After a temporary post-pandemic rebound produced growth of about 4.7 percent in 2021, growth fell to 2.8 percent in 2022 and 0.2 percent in 2023, before recovering to 1.6 percent in 2024 and about 2.5 percent in 2025, according to World Bank data.
Growth of 2 or 2.5 percent is insufficient to absorb unemployment, which remains at about 15 percent, let alone create new jobs. Nor is it enough to finance the investment required by an economy already constrained by structural weaknesses.
Meanwhile, the state’s need for resources to finance expenditure and service its debt has increased. Public debt rose from about 67.8 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019 to nearly 85 percent in 2024, while gross financing needs almost doubled, from 7.9 percent of GDP to 16 percent.
As access to external financing narrowed, the state became increasingly dependent on domestic markets and the banking system. In February 2024, the Central Bank directly lent the Treasury about seven billion dinars, interest-free and with a long repayment period. In 2025, the state again borrowed the same amount directly from the Central Bank, in foreign currency, to cover part of its external financing needs.
Commercial banks have also been increasingly required to finance the Treasury through government bonds, crowding out the private sector and restricting its access to financing.
At the same time, cash circulating outside the banking system reached record levels after the authorities retreated from earlier policies encouraging electronic payments, integrating the informal economy and reducing cash transactions. This weakened the banking system’s ability to mobilise savings and finance productive investment.
Purchasing power has consequently fallen sharply. Although inflation declined from a peak of 10.4 percent in February 2023 to about 5.7 percent in 2025, prices did not return to previous levels, and food remains a major burden on Tunisian households.
By the summer of 2026, the crisis had moved beyond economic statistics into everyday life. Tunisians organise their days around electricity and water cuts, while many see migration as their only means of escape, even when the journey risks death at sea.
What became of the promises to rewrite history and create a new human model that would secure dignity for Tunisians and inspire the rest of the world, phrases Saied repeatedly invoked in his speeches?
Tunisia’s situation today is a practical lesson for anyone who still believes that illusions, words and slogans can build the future of nations.
The collapse of the slogans
“Self-reliance” was attractive because it suggested economic independence and freedom from external dependence. Instead, it has gradually become a threat to the sustainability of Tunisia’s own banking and financial system.
It did not reduce indebtedness so much as redirect it towards the domestic market, before shortages of domestic financing pushed borrowing abroad again, where Tunisia faces very high borrowing costs because of its reliance on financial markets, its declining sovereign credit rating and its strained relationship with the International Monetary Fund for ideological reasons.
The promise of recovering stolen funds, meanwhile, has resulted in prisons filling with businesspeople and their continued pursuit to the point where being an investor in Tunisia has come to resemble an accusation. This climate has discouraged investment, disrupted production and contributed to company failures, worsening unemployment and social tensions, without generating meaningful financial returns for the state.
The community companies project, another central pillar of Saied’s programme, illustrates the shortcomings of his economic vision and its lack of a solid theoretical foundation.
It was presented as an alternative ownership model, resembling experiments ranging from kibbutzim to worker-run enterprises in Argentina and agricultural cooperatives in Brazil and Bolivia. But changing the form of ownership does not automatically create wealth. An enterprise requires capital, a genuine feasibility study, sound governance, markets and technology.
These conditions were not provided to the community companies. Instead of becoming an engine of growth and easing pressure on public finances, they themselves came to depend on Treasury intervention and public financing simply to survive, becoming another burden on a state already short of resources.
The lesson from Tunisia
It would be easy, amid Tunisia’s intense political debate, to attribute all of the economy’s problems to the past five years. But that would be unfair to economic reality.
Saied did not inherit a healthy economy, a debt-free state, well-functioning public institutions or a labour market capable of absorbing hundreds of thousands of young people. Tunisia had already suffered for years from weak growth, high unemployment, public-finance imbalances, declining investment and regional disparities that successive governments failed to reduce.
Nor has Saied governed in isolation from an exceptionally difficult international environment. COVID-19 left deep scars on the economy. The war in Ukraine drove up energy, grain and raw material prices, while Tunisia endured one of the worst droughts in its modern history.
But none of this absolves Saied of responsibility. Politicians are judged not simply by the crises they inherit, but by the direction in which the country moves after they take office.
Saied’s responsibility is greater because he did not merely promise reform or better living conditions. He claimed to bring extraordinary new ideas unlike anything humanity had seen before and to be writing a new history for the Tunisian people – to use the terminology he himself repeatedly employs.
To implement his project, he took control of all powers, drafted a constitution himself that granted him sweeping authority, and removed opponents of his policies from the political scene, whether through imprisonment or exile.
Yet Tunisians have found no trace of these slogans in their daily lives. On the contrary, their circumstances have deteriorated and poverty has tightened its grip.
This contradiction perhaps offers practical evidence that economic prosperity does not come from grand slogans and polished phrases, pursuing businesspeople and investors, or imprisoning political opponents.
It comes from rational leadership, economic openness and a healthy investment climate built on confidence in state institutions and their fairness.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
