When Kais Saied, a former law professor and political outsider, was elected president of Tunisia back in October of 2019 he was the hope of the region’s young democrats. After all it was here that the first stirrings of revolt sparked the process that shook dictatorships from Syria to Morocco in what became known as the Arab Spring in the early 2010s.
But alas, when Saied appeared in a jolly photo-op standing alongside Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Egypt’s Abdel Fatah al-Sisi during the Arab Summit this May it clearly signalled Tunisia’s return to the autocratic habits of the rest of the region’s current political class – though the signs have been there for a long time for those who cared to look.
