The agreement—whose durability is already in doubt amid new disagreements between Brussels and Tunis—is enormously controversial. That’s because Tunisia is a rapidly backsliding democracy with an ever-growing slew of alleged human rights violations to its name. EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell wrote in an internal email obtained by the Guardian that “several member states expressed their incomprehension” on the EU-Tunisia deal.

Elections to Watch in 2024: This story is part of a package on 15 key elections this year (besides the United States). Read the full analysis here. 

One of the 15 key elections to watch in 2024’s historic global vote.

The last time I wrote about Tunisian elections, the year was 2021, and President Kais Saied had just completed a power grab that critics labeled a “coup.” Until then, the presidency in Tunisia—often considered the Arab Spring’s only democratic success story—had been a ceremonial role; a state of emergency instituted by Saied allowed him to rule by decree.

In 2022, Saied made his role official in a constitutional referendum that transformed Tunisia from a hybrid presidential-parliamentary to a suprapresidential system with nearly unchecked executive authority. (The moves mirror Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s attempts to consolidate power.) Among other changes, journalist Simon Speakman Cordall reported ahead of the vote, “the new constitution grants the president immunity throughout his tenure and states that he cannot be questioned about his actions as president.”

This year’s Tunisian presidential election—expected to be held sometime in the fall—will be the first such contest following Saied’s constitutional changes. Since the last presidential vote in 2019 that brought Saied to power as a political independent promising change, Tunisia has declined from a flawed democracy to a hybrid regime, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index.

The country’s leading opposition figure, Rached Ghannouchi, is languishing in prison on spurious charges observers say are politically motivated. Saied, a stalwart secularist, has taken aim at Ghannouchi’s moderate Islamist Ennahda party, which was instrumental to Tunisia’s recent democratization and later became its largest political bloc. Amid the drudgery of parliamentary deliberation, Ennahda was not able to pass much decisive policy, frustrating many Tunisians. Saied justified his expanded powers by alluding to what he claims is the “corrupt machinery of established party politics” and the inefficacy it brings, researcher Johannes Lang wrote in Foreign Policy in December 2022.

Though Saied’s anti-democratic moves have provoked public backlash and protests, he also has his fair share of supporters. It’s difficult to peg Saied’s approval, as opposition boycotts of recent elections have rendered the results almost comically lopsided. The 2022 constitutional referendum received nearly 95 percent backing at the polls with only around 30 percent turnout. Now, there are indications that some in Saied’s base—which includes young voters—may slowly be turning on the president, journalist Tharwa Boulifi reported in Foreign Policy last February.

Democratic backsliding is far from the only issue plaguing Tunisia. Human rights advocates have also condemned the country’s treatment of Black people. Tunisian authorities have exercised “escalating violence and abuses against sub-Saharan African migrants,” Amnesty International warned in July 2023, and Saied has gone so far as to espouse versions of the far-right “great replacement” theory. “Many security analysts believe that Saied’s incendiary remarks are devised to whip up racial hatred at a time of fierce opposition toward his one-man rule,” FP’s Nosmot Gbadamosi, the author of Africa Brief, reported last March.

The Tunisian government’s well-documented xenophobia is part of why the EU-Tunisia migrant deal is so controversial. In addition to bolstering Tunisia’s border security, that agreement was intended to offer a lifeline to a country in economic turmoil. Tunisia is saddled with debt amid rampant inflation. But the government has been unable to agree to a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), its most prominent creditor—ostensibly a condition for receiving EU funds. Saied, who rejected an IMF deal last October, has attacked the fund with anti-Western rhetoric, providing cover to an escalating domestic crisis.

With his chief opponent Ghannouchi—and others—behind bars, Saied’s reelection campaign this year may end up being a well-choreographed political charade. Per his own constitutional reforms, Saied is eligible to run for one more five-year term in office. He will need an absolute majority to win; if not, a runoff vote will be held.

So far, only one candidate besides Saied has declared an intention to run. In November 2023, Olfa Hamdi, the former CEO of Tunisia’s national airline Tunisair, announced that she would stand as the candidate of her self-founded Third Republic Party. Hamdi said she aimed to “build a broad coalition ensuring a successful peaceful political transformation.”

Hamdi may be asking for too much. Saied has already announced that he will prohibit foreign election monitors from observing Tunisia’s presidential vote. A country the Economist called a “light unto the Arab nations” just a decade ago may soon be fading into darkness.