Tunisia's Failed Democracy: An Initial Evaluation

 


It doesn't seem like the greatest time to conduct a candid evaluation of Tunisia's democratic experiment given that its descent towards dictatorship is accelerated every day. To be clear, President Kais Saied is mostly to blame for the collapse of Tunisia's fledgling democracy. But a postmortem of the elements that assisted in preparing the ground for his self-coup on July 25, 2021, is still required. 

After all, Saied's actions, supported by Facebook conspiracy theorists, mirror and accentuate the discontent of many Tunisians with the nation's political elite. An analysis of Tunisia's democratic experiment can assist serve as a point of departure for any future attempts by experienced and new leaders to resuscitate and reconstruct a pluralist democracy, especially because his political ideology rests on this loss of hope. 

Such an analysis can also offer guidance for the numerous governmental and nonprofit organisations in the West that support democracy, some of which have been significant, if less experienced, participants in what now appears to be a dream postponed.

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