President Kais Saied completes ‘Algerianization’ of Tunisia

Since he took power in 2019, President Kais Saied has followed an Algerian blueprint to destroy checks and balances, backtracking on Arab Spring assets that once made Tunisia a democratic country.

Nothing depicts the vassalization of Tunisia by Algeria than the recent election, won by Kais Saied with 90.7% of the votes, with his main rival Ayachi Zammel in jail.

Saied has followed Algeria’s guidebook cracking down on Presidential election hopefuls, muzzling the press, sending critics to jail and co-opting the political class to create a one-man show reminiscent of pre-2011 Tunisia.

Just like Algeria, much of the opposition boycotted the Tunisian election, calling it sham.

Since taking power, Saied indulged in a populism that echoed Algerian conspiracy theories in pinning many self-inflicted economic woes on Israel and the “invisible foreign hand”.

In the footsteps of Tebboune, Saied destroyed the economic outlook of his country, reducing Tunisia’s public finances in a struggle to service debt.

His import restriction policy is an Algerian approach that created long queues among Tunisians for flour, coffee, and butter to mention but a few basic goods.

Saied bowed to Algerian dictates to the extent of breaking decades of Tunisian neutrality on the Sahara issue by receiving the separatists’ chief Brahim Ghali in a state reception, triggering diplomatic frost with Rabat.

Tunisian analysts have often deplored the fact that their country is now reduced to an Algerian vassal state where Algerian security services have acted with impunity.

Kais Saied regime has even allowed Algerian agents to arrest refugee Slimane Bohafs, a Kabyle independence leader, in 2021.

The Tunisian case also shows the mindset among the ruling elites in Algeria who conceive regional cooperation as only possible if the state becomes an Algerian proxy that subordinates its policy to the priorities of Algiers.