‘You Just Think About Eating’: Why Tunisians Backed a Presidential Power Grab

Dissatisfied by the government’s handling of the pandemic and the economy, some in this North African nation welcomed drastic action to change the political leadership.

TEBOURBA, Tunisia — Aroussi Mejri, a 40-year-old waiter, is lucky to have a regular job, even if it pays only about $7.20 a day. Yet although a lot has changed in Tunisia since he started working in cafes more than a decade ago, wages have not. Since 2011, his country has gone from an autocracy to the only democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring uprisings as it felled its former dictator. But for him, the main difference is that it has gotten much harder to feed his children. “From what we’ve seen so far, democracy has no value,” he said last week in his hometown, Tebourba, about an hour’s drive from Tunis, the capital. “If someone like me stayed stuck in the same situation he was in before, why did we revolt?”