Tunisia's summer of discontent

Tunisia's summer of discontent

Submitted by Faisal Edroos on Mon, 08/31/2026 - 12:00 Rolling blackouts plunged entire neighbourhoods into darkness with water shortages sparking fights and raids on supply trucks. With prices rising and jobs scarce, Tunisia's economic malaise is hitting people where it hurts the most

Across Tunisia, the question this summer was brutally simple: when will the electricity cut out?

For some, the answer was a few times a day, mainly in the dead of the night.

But for many, the power outages lasted for hours on end - particularly during the hottest parts of the day.

In the middle of the gruelling heatwaves the fans stopped spinning, air conditioners fell silent and the taps ran dry, stark reminders that the state is struggling to provide even the most basic services.

For Nadia, the outages were a crisis in their own right. "We can understand that there is a heatwave and that electricity demand is high," the 26-year-old told Middle East Eye. "But what we can't understand is how the government was not prepared."

Throughout the summer, Tunisia was gripped by extreme spells of heat, with temperatures reaching the high 40s Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) for successive days. 

The heat pushed electricity demand to record levels, with households and businesses turning on air conditioning and fans to keep people cool. 

The outages also affected other parts of daily life, with demand for bottled water adding pressure to a system already facing longer-term shortages.

Nadia, a resident of the affluent cliff side suburb of Sidi Bou Said, said her frustration was not only with the repeated outages but also with the explanations coming from the presidency.

'[President Kais Saied] has failed to achieve any of his objectives. But he has demonstrated a remarkable ability to destroy the state, the economy, and society through a discourse of accusations of treason and hatred'

- Moncef Marzouki, former president

"Every summer we know it will be hot. We pay our electricity bills, yet we are left sitting in the dark for hours," she said.

"The president talks about conspiracies and sabotage, but people want to know why the state can't keep the electricity running."

President Kais Saied repeatedly tried to shield himself from responsibility, claiming the problems were not the result of ordinary technical failures but due to planned or deliberate acts.

According to the president, those responsible and their backers sought "to stir up tensions by all possible means", "to spread lies and rumours," and "impose hardships on Tunisians."

"The enemies of the homeland and their allies have been unmasked in the eyes of the Tunisian people," he claimed.

It was familiar language from a president who's repeatedly attributed Tunisia's troubles to hidden forces.

But for the first time since Saied assumed the presidency in 2019, his explanations appeared to be landing on deaf ears.

Moncef Marzouki, Tunisia's first democratically elected president after the 2011 revolution and one of Saied's most persistent critics, pointed the blame squarely at the president.

"The state is in a condition of complete paralysis," Marzouki told MEE, adding that Saied had "demonstrated incompetence in every field."

"He has failed to achieve any of his objectives," Marzouki said, "but he has demonstrated a remarkable ability to destroy the state, the economy, and society through a discourse of accusations of treason and hatred."

When the lights go out

On the last day of August, when the temperature in Tunis was hovering around 37C, a far cry from late July when it peaked at 47C, entire neighbourhoods were still engulfed by darkness. 

Several residents in Le Kram West, a low-income neighbourhood in northern Tunis, told MEE that their electricity had been cut for at least six hours, turning shops and homes into sweltering boxes.

"This can't go on," Hussein, a visibly angry food delivery driver, told MEE.

"Everything just keeps getting worse and worse."

The situation was deemed so dire that the Tunisian League for Human Rights described the prolonged blackouts as an infringement of fundamental rights and human dignity.

The night Tunisia changed Read More »

Tunisia has historically experienced power cuts in the country's interior regions, where electricity demand has at times outstripped available domestic supply.

But this year's blackouts were increasingly difficult to manage due to domestic energy production declining and Tunisia becoming more dependent on imported gas to keep its power stations running.

For years, investment in renewable energy fell far short of what was initially planned, leaving the country heavily reliant on gas-fired power stations to keep the grid running.

According to the World Bank, electricity demand has also been rising by about 5 percent a year since 2010, and this summer, demand hit record highs of 6 gigawatts - spiking more than 33 percent above normal.

At the same time, STEG, the state electricity and gas company, has faced mounting financial difficulties, limiting its ability to invest and upgrade an ageing network.

The company's total debt reached around $2.6bn in June, while unpaid bills owed to the company by private customers and public institutions stood at around $2.1bn.

Despite Tunisia also importing electricity from neighbouring Algeria, this summer's rolling blackouts placed additional strain on an exhausted healthcare system and created particular risks for patients who rely on electricity-dependent equipment.

Doctors warned that extreme heat was increasing pressure on emergency departments, while elderly people and those with underlying health conditions were especially vulnerable to heat-related illness.

But the crisis was felt far beyond hospitals.

At several poultry farms, power cuts knocked out ventilation and cooling systems, with devastating consequences.

'Nothing works, everything is broken. We just want the basics. Give us electricity. Give us clean water. We don't care about anything else'

- Hussein, food delivery driver

At one farm in El Fahs, nearly 90 percent of the chickens died after a prolonged outage caused the ventilation system and backup generator to fail.

STEG defended the load-shedding measures, saying they were necessary to prevent a wider collapse of the electricity network.

But for businesses and households, the distinction between an emergency measure and a failing service was difficult to see.

"Nothing works, everything is broken," Hussein said.

"We just want the basics. Give us electricity. Give us clean water. We don't care about anything else."

From blackouts to water shortages

To compound matters, the electricity crisis fuelled Tunisia's water problems.

The country was already facing structural water scarcity with overexploited aquifers and drought placing growing pressure on supplies. But the blackouts added another vulnerability: knocking several pumping stations offline.

Tunisia's national water company, Sonede, documented several cases where the interruptions stopped pumping stations and disrupted water supplies.

In La Marsa, an affluent neighbourhood that hosts some of the capital's largest supermarkets, the problem was impossible to miss.

MEE visited two popular supermarkets in late August only to find no bottled water on the shelves. The situation was even worse in local shops, where store owners said they had not received water for days.

More than a dozen Tunisians told MEE they spent hours queuing for water the previous week, only to find shop owners had limited how many bottles customers could buy.

One man told MEE that he had spent hours trying to find bottled water, during which he saw tempers flare and fights break out over limited supplies.

"I saw men pushing and shouting at women as they fought with each other to grab a six-pack of bottled water," he said.

"Look at what the state has reduced us to. This is shameful."

The man, who asked not to be named or photographed, said that in one instance other Tunisians waiting in a queue lashed out at a passerby who filmed the chaotic scenes, apparently embarrassed by images of desperation spreading online.

The situation escalated further in several incidents when trucks carrying bottled water were ransacked as people scrambled to secure supplies.

'I saw men pushing and shouting at women as they fought with each other to grab a six-pack of bottled water. Look at what the state has reduced us to. This is shameful'

- Tunisian customer trying to buy water

The government responded by trying to regulate supplies more tightly, with authorities seizing bottled water allegedly being hoarded.

According to an August assessment by the Assessment Capacities Project, authorities seized more than 147,000 litres of bottled water.

The shortages also pushed prices higher, particularly with shops charging more for chilled bottled water.

For families already under pressure, the extra cost is another burden. But for many, the problem isn't simply the absence of bottled water.

While Tunisia's food safety authority says tap water meets health standards and poses no microbiological risks, many households have long preferred bottled water because of concerns about its taste, smell, and salinity.

According to a Gallup poll in 2022, a staggering 81 percent of Tunisians said they were unhappy with the quality of their tap water.

That has made bottled water less of a convenience than a necessity for many families – and an increasingly expensive one.

The anger beneath the surface

So why did the blackouts not produce widespread protests?

The answer is partly political.

Michael Ayari, International Crisis Group's leading analyst on Tunisia, said the unrest did "not yet amount to a coordinated political movement against Kais Saied" because there remained "a significant gap between anger and mobilisation."

He said the unrest was accumulating protests "around very different issues", suggesting that Saied was entering "a more vulnerable phase."

"The unrest suggests that Saied is entering a more vulnerable phase, but not necessarily an immediately existential one.

'The unrest suggests that Saied is entering a more vulnerable phase, but not necessarily an immediately existential one'

- Michael Ayari, International Crisis Group

"His greatest political asset has long been that many Tunisians blamed the pre-2021 political establishment more than they blamed him. That protective buffer appears to be weakening. As shortages and service failures continue after five years of increasingly personalised rule, responsibility is becoming harder to externalise," he added.

For Mohamed, a resident of Ettadamen, a densely populated district west of Tunis, attending any of the small protests would do little to address what he sees as the government's failures.

After watching basic services deteriorate, he told MEE that he had grown apathetic and lost faith that protesting will change anything.

"Look at the streets," he said. "There's rubbish everywhere and nobody seems to give a shit."

"We used to complain about corruption and politicians, but now we are complaining about things that should be basic: electricity, water, rubbish collection."

Saied was elected president in 2019 as an outsider, campaigning against an established political class that many Tunisians blamed for corruption, political infighting and years of economic stagnation.

He said he could cut through the political paralysis, restore the authority of the state and make government work.

On 25 July 2021, he moved to do exactly that. He suspended parliament, sacked the prime minister and granted himself prosecutorial powers, invoking a national emergency in a move rights groups and political opponents called a coup.

Many Tunisians initially welcomed the power grab, frustrated by years of political deadlock. 

"The people were tired of the parties and politicians who promised everything and delivered nothing," Karim, an unemployed university graduate, told MEE.

"But five years later, his [Saied's] promises have only brought us chaos. His words are cheap," he added.

Saied has also cycled through four prime ministers, with the latest change coming in March 2025 when Kamel Madouri was replaced with Sarra Zaafrani Zenzri.

The constant turnover has also made it difficult to present a coherent economic strategy, at a time when Tunisia needs precisely that. 

Investment remains weak, public debt is high, and unemployment stood at around 15 percent at the end of 2025. 

The World Bank estimates that public debt was about 82.2 percent of GDP in 2025, while Fitch expects it will rise to around 85 percent this year.

According to Amine Snoussi, a Tunis-based political analyst, the change in public mood is becoming impossible to miss.

"It's pretty serious," he told MEE. "It's the first time since the coup that most of the people are unhappy with Kais Saied."

"Even at times when Kais Saied did some crazy shit," he said, referring to measures restricting political and media freedoms, "it has never come to the fact that most of the people are unhappy with him."

Now, he said, the mood is different.

"When you talk to people on the streets, when you talk to random people, the bare minimum is that they are unhappy with the situation in Tunisia."

Absent opposition

Another sign of the shift is sarcasm becoming a form of political expression.

Amid a crackdown on dissent, Tunisians who once expressed anger over political decisions are increasingly using jokes, mockery and dark humour to take aim at Saied and the state's failures.

But that anger has been difficult to translate into organised opposition, with only a handful of opposition figures able to speak publicly against Saied and gain meaningful traction.

Ennahda officials have continued to attack the president and consolidate what remains of their base, but much of the party's senior leadership is in prison or facing prosecution. 

'We will rise again': A new generation of Tunisians prepare for Ennahda's return Read More »

The crackdown has also effectively removed some of the country's best-known opposition politicians from public life.

Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, the leader of the National Salvation Front, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in the so-called "conspiracy case". 

In September, Tunisia's Court of Cassation upheld lengthy sentences against dozens of opposition figures, including Chebbi, effectively closing the legal proceedings against one of the country's most prominent opposition coalitions.

One of the most prominent figures to emerge and try and fill the vacuum has been Mondher Zenaidi, a former minister under Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who ran against Saied in the 2024 presidential election.

Zenaidi had spent years outside of Tunisia and initially remained a relatively marginal figure. But in recent months, he has returned to the public conversation, speaking about the deterioration of state institutions, the economy, electricity and water shortages.

Other figures that have also tried to occupy parts of that space include US citizen Olfa Hamdi, leader of the Third Republic party, who has called for a transitional government and early elections.

While the newly formed Nafas movement has sought to bring opposition parties together, almost every potential challenger has faced the same obstacle: Tunisia's political space has narrowed dramatically.

And as Tunisia's domestic political landscape has contracted, foreign powers are gaining greater importance in determining what comes next.

Algeria, who's president has close ties with Saied, has tried to help keep Tunisia's energy system running, while the two countries have deepened cooperation on trade, security, defence, and the border.

In October 2025, Tunisia and Algeria signed a new defence cooperation agreement covering training, intelligence and expertise-sharing, joint operations and border security. And in July, Tunisia reaffirmed its intention to elevate the relationship into a "comprehensive strategic partnership."

The relationship gives Algiers significant leverage at a time when Tunis is increasingly dependent on external support. 

Algeria has previously provided Tunisia with loans, deposits, and preferential energy arrangements, and analysts have warned that this growing dependence could give Algiers greater influence over the country's political direction.

For Saied, the relationship offers an important regional backer at a time when ties with parts of the West have become increasingly strained. 

Europe, meanwhile, has had its own priorities. 

The EU has continued to deepen cooperation with Tunisia on migration, border control, energy, and investment, giving Saied another source of external support while European governments seek to reduce migration across the Mediterranean. 

'Populist narratives aren't working'

Karim, the university graduate, said that with unemployment remaining stubbornly high, particularly among young people and university graduates, Tunisia was ripe for a major public display of anger.

While he didn't expect Tunisia to repeat the events of the 2011 Arab Spring Uprising, he said the conditions that produced unrest are becoming harder to ignore.

"We've just endured a brutally hot summer and next month the rainy season will begin," he said. "Whenever the rains come, the country grinds to a halt because none of the shitty infrastructure can withstand the elements.

"Unless Saied brings in the right people who start fixing these issues, or at least gives us a timeline of when the issues will finally be addressed, people will come out onto the streets. And the numbers could be far greater than anything we've witnessed so far."

Poultry, fruit and fresh fish have all recorded sharp increases this year, and in August, Tunisia's annual inflation rate stood at 5.4 percent, while food prices rose 7.5 percent year on year.

Saied has increasingly relied on domestic borrowing and the central bank to finance the government’s needs, rejecting a proposed $1.9bn International Monetary Fund programme.

The decision has narrowed the government's room to invest in the infrastructure needed to prevent the very crises now fuelling public anger.

The pressure is also being felt in households where basic expenses are becoming increasingly difficult to cover. Karim said he knew of several households facing difficult choices every month, including whether to pay for medicine or food.

Amel, a 24-year-old civil servant, described what this means for people trying to afford basic healthcare.

'Saied has been able to weather economic challenges by scapegoating political parties, businessmen, migrants, and foreign powers, among others. But today, these populist narratives are no longer working'

- Sharan Grewal, American University 

"Some medicines are difficult to find, and the prices keep going up," she said, citing her family's own struggles to obtain the right medication for her mother.

"If you are retired or have a low salary, you have to choose between buying your medicine and paying for food."

In July, the Central Pharmacy of Tunisia approved price increases for around 300 medicines, including treatments for diabetes, heart disease, thyroid disorders and other chronic conditions. 

The increases followed years of financial problems at the state pharmacy, which has struggled with the rising cost of imported medicines, a weaker dinar and accumulated debts.

The government has argued that the increases are necessary to keep medicines available. But the move has angered patients, MPs and Tunisia's powerful UGTT labour union, which called for the increases to be reviewed.

For ordinary Tunisians, however, the distinction between structural financial problems and political failure is becoming increasingly difficult to make.

Sharan Grewal, an Assistant Professor of Government at American University and a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings, said the arguments that once helped Saied win power are becoming harder to sustain.

"Saied has been able to weather economic challenges by scapegoating political parties, businessmen, migrants, and foreign powers, among others," he said.

"But today, these populist narratives are no longer working.

"Tunisians can literally feel that things are not working," he added.

For Amel, the failure is impossible to ignore.

She said she was exhausted and increasingly hopeless as the pressures of everyday life pile up.

"We are all tired. My brothers and friends are talking about leaving for Europe because they have lost hope. 

"No one believes things will get better anymore. What else are we supposed to do?"

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