Five years ago, Kais Saied suspended Tunisia’s parliament, seized emergency powers, and began dismantling the checks that once constrained the presidency. This week, as temperatures soars and Tunisians sat in the dark due to repetitive power outages and water cuts.
Since July 12, state utility STEG has imposed rolling blackouts across the country to avoid a full grid collapse under record demand, with an official telling state television that electricity demand may have hit a record.
Some residents report outages of up to 20 hours in a country where power and water cuts affected only parts of Tunisia in previous summers but this year have spread across much of the country.
Analysts point to years of underinvestment in electricity and water infrastructure due, in part, to the country’s financial crisis and the limited ability to invest in new generation capacity.
The outages fueled protests calling for Kais Saied to step down amid repression of dissident voices. The opposition says state institutions have collapsed, promises have gone unfulfilled, and power has become concentrated in his hands like never before.
Now the same population that lost its parliament, its independent judiciary, and increasingly its right to criticize the president without risking prosecution, is losing something even more basic that is reliable electricity and running water.
