World News

Tunisians march again in the capital to demand the president's departure

By Staff Writer  |  22 August 2026

Hundreds walked through Tunis on Thursday calling for Kais Saied to stand down and for jailed opposition figures to be released, after a summer of power and water cuts.

Hundreds of people marched through central Tunis on Thursday demanding that President Kais Saied leave office and that constitutional government be restored. Marchers said they rejected one man rule and a drift towards dictatorship, and called for the release of jailed opposition figures, activists and journalists. It was the second such march in a month, following one on 25 July that fell on the anniversary of Mr Saied's dismissal of the government and suspension of parliament in 2021.

Utilities as much as politics

The march came at the end of a summer in which many Tunisians have been short of both water and electricity. A heatwave pushed electricity demand to record levels and the state owned utility brought in rationing across several regions. The cuts reached the water pumping stations as well, which sharpened a long standing problem with drinking water supply in parts of the country. Smaller protests have broken out elsewhere over the same failures and over environmental damage, and the country was one of several in North Africa hit by wildfires this summer.

The country has hit a wall. There is no water or electricity. What I see is that the country is going backwards, while others have moved ahead of us

Youssef Hleli, a marcher in Tunis

Marchers also called for an end to shortages of medicines and for improvements to basic services, putting the cost of living alongside the political demands rather than behind them.

A movement built outside the old opposition

Thursday's march was called by the Nafas movement, launched in May, which is trying to draw in political parties and independent figures from beyond Tunisia's established opposition. Both marches it has organised brought out opposition activists alongside people who had never joined a political demonstration before. The chants have hardened over the summer, and recent rallies have carried the words of 2011, among them the single syllable shouted at the government of that year, Degage, meaning get out.

Five years of rule by decree

Mr Saied, who is 68 and was a constitutional lawyer before entering politics, was elected in 2019 with a campaign that took no donations and ran on volunteers. He dismissed the government and suspended parliament in July 2021, began ruling by decree later that year and dissolved parliament in 2022. He has since taken control of the body that governs the courts and has held mass trials of political opponents. He says his critics take foreign money to destabilise the country.

The economic ground under all of this has been giving way for years. Inflation stands at 5.2 per cent on the World Bank's measure, investment has fallen sharply, and the government has responded by freezing public sector hiring and cutting imports. Those two measures reach the same households that spent August without reliable power, which is why a march about the constitution filled up with people talking about taps and switches.