The succession of environmental and social protests that have rocked Tunisia for a month has now called into question the authoritarian authority of President Kais Saied, who has been in office since 2019 and was re-elected last year after being shut out in parliament in 2021. The deterioration of public services and the economic crisis experienced by the Maghreb country, where the minimum wage stands at 450 dinars (about 130 euros), are behind the brunt of citizen discontent recorded since Saied’s arrival. In power, he led the process of demolishing the multi-party system that emerged in 2011 at the first outbreak of the Arab Spring.
Behind the workers in the transportation sector and the last bank employees, the movements of doctors and journalists visited the streets of the Tunisian capital last week. Thousands of people demonstrated on Saturday in Tunis to attack Saied’s policies. The president systematically criticizes displays of discontent against a foreign conspiracy aimed at undermining the state through imaginary crises.
It was the massive protests against pollution in the coastal region of Gabes (Akeed) that shook the foundations of the regime most forcefully. Last month, tens of thousands of people gathered in the streets in a public battle against poisonings caused by the chemical industry.
In September, more than 200 people, most of them school-age minors, had to be treated in area health centers for respiratory problems. 120 people were taken to hospital after showing symptoms of suffocation due to toxic gas fumes emanating from the complex of the public company Groupe Chimique Tunisiene (GCT).
The demonstrators from Gabès (400 thousand people) demanded the closure of factory activities. Pollution from the CGT complex (which provides direct employment to about 4,000 people) has devastated an agricultural and fishing area that today records an unemployment rate of about 25%.
President Saied rushed an “environmental assessment” of industrial policy in the latter half of the year and sent a government committee to hear the concerns of the citizens of Gabès, who had promised in 2017 that polluting industries would disappear. Several civil society organizations responded to a complaint before the courts demanding the closure of the CGT scheme after hearing official explanations.
Fertilizers contribute about 5% of Tunisia’s GDP and represent about 10% of its exports. In March, the government announced plans to quintup fertilizer production before 2030. Instead of considering dismantling the facilities in Gabès, the executive headed by Saied plans to reactivate six chemical projects in the same region – in principle using technology that reduces the emission of toxic gases into the atmosphere – for a sum of approximately €60 million in return.
There is no immediate solution to the conflict in sight. For the third time in a month, one of the Gabès courts resumed court proceedings, classified as urgent, related to the closure of the chemical factory activity called for by citizens’ associations. The new offer is set for December 4th, according to information from Efe.
“Deconstructing the official narrative”
A political analyst, who preferred to remain anonymous to avoid a new criminal case against him, confirms in letters exchanged with the state that “the regime is trying to find solutions to the pollution issue, but it is unable to do so because it is a structural problem that is more than 50 years old.”
“But you cannot even respond to citizens’ demand to close the chemical plant, as you will be denied basic tickets to the stadium,” he warns. According to the same source, the Gabès protests “dismantled the official narrative of the regime, which says that it responds above all to the needs of the Pueblo.” He points out that “so far, only a study committee has been formed while continuing to pursue the theory of a foreign conspiracy against the country, without providing a response that might pose a problem.”
Hundreds of journalists gathered in the Tunisian capital to complain about the respect for freedom of expression behind this operation and the imprisonment of several reporters, Evie reports. The protesters rejected the delay in handing over qualifications to local and foreign informants to practice the profession. They are subject to the supervision of the Ministry of Communication, where, according to the National Union of Tonic Journalists, they are caught in the middle of “administrative irrationality.” In the last presidential elections, El Pais received its press accreditation request only in silence.
On another front of the protests, thousands of doctors joined their ranks to demand increased salaries and denounce the deterioration of the health system, old sanitary materials and the shortage of medicines, according to Reuters. The youngest doctors confirm that this situation is the reason behind the exodus of professionals from hospitals in Europe and the Near East.
Besieged opposition
The government only has questions. In April, an anti-terrorism court sentenced the mayor of Tunisia against the opposition since the end of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s dictatorship in 2011. Four decades of party leaders, former high-ranking officials, intellectuals and businessmen were sentenced to sentences ranging from 13 to 66 years in prison, on charges of “conspiring against state security.” They are figures from different political currents – conservative and progressive, secular and Islamist – even with the common denominator of opposition to President Saied’s authoritarian drift.
A month ago, the historic Islamic leader Rachid Ghannouchi, 83 years old, founder of the Ennahdha Party, had the highest percentage (40.7%) in the 2019 legislative elections, the last that could be submitted before he was banned. Ganucci was sentenced to 22 years in prison, which is in addition to the 10 years of imprisonment accumulated in previous trials for which he has been detained between courts since 2023.
“The country is like a prison”
Many of the defendants were then imprisoned for years after their arrest. Others were convicted of rebellion after leaving the country. Among the first figures was the Social Democrat Gaiam Turk of Zaragoza, sentenced to 48 years in prison, and whose Spanish passport listed him as the son of a Republican exile after the Spanish Civil War. A source close to his legal defense believes that this will come until the appeal against the ruling issued against him has calmed down, which was scheduled for next July, a week ago, “before the climate of social protests grows.” “The country now faces imprisonment,” confirms a source surrounding Turki’s legal defense.
In another message, the aforementioned political analyst, who expressed himself on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, believes that in Tunisia “he still has popular adherence to the regime, and Saied continues to rely on the trust of sectors of the population behind the stigma of the traditional political class.” “I’m playing for you,” he says, “because right now there is no real alternative to power.”
In a massive protest on Saturday, one of Tunisia’s mayors registered under Saied’s mandate, displayed messages reading “You are not my president” and expressed their solidarity with those affected by pollution in Gabès. They also called for the release of “prisoners of conscience.”
Saied was elected six years ago in the hope of putting an end to the political and economic despair prevailing amid the Maghreb’s turbulent transition. But in 2021, Parliament was dissolved, which was denounced as a “self-coup” and denounced by a majority of parties, one year after it reformed the constitution to concentrate the basic powers of the state in its own hands.
“Finally, the protests are undermining the image built by official propaganda of Saied, as a president who responds above all to the city’s volunteer work,” the Tunisian political analyst concludes. In a reflection of the growing civic detachment of his character, Tunisia’s last parliamentary rallies, held in 2023, left electoral bodies empty, with nearly 90% abstaining.
Last year, voters died in support of Saied’s re-election, and 72% of those surveyed showed disinterest due to a ballot in which the opposition’s main aspirants were in prison or had their candidacy overturned. In 2014, the first democratic marches led to the founding revolutions of the Arab Spring that toppled dictator Zine and Abdine Ben Ali and recorded a 37% abstention.
To secure himself in power, Saied pursued a tough policy on thousands of illegal sub-Saharan migrants trying to reach European shores from Tunisia. On the other hand, it has negotiated a basic agreement with the European Union to stop the arrival of migrants to the central Mediterranean, as it aspires to obtain up to 1,000 million euros in aid for the development of the Maghreb state.