From north to south, protests sweep across Tunisia: Is change at hand?

Filed 5h ago · Via Global Voices · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Circus of Freaks

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Mænsard vokser · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Protests demanding jobs, development, and dignity have spread across Tunisian provinces including Sidi Bouzid, Kasserine, and Gabes, echoing the slogans of the 2011 revolution. Unemployed university graduates in Kasserine are demanding the government enforce a 2025 law promising them public sector jobs.

President Kais Saied met with his prime minister and economy minister to discuss next year's budget and promised regional balance and dignity within a five-year plan. Analysts quoted in the piece say the labor union's entry into the protests, ahead of a possible general strike, signals the social unrest is merging with political opposition to Saied's rule.

Critics accuse the government of repression through arrests and a decree restricting free expression, arguing the president has replaced 'the people want' with 'the leader wants.'

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A five-year plan announced the same week people are marching over today's rent has a familiar ring to it. When the promise gets bigger as the patience gets shorter, that usually means the ledger's empty and someone's stalling for time. Tunisia already wrote the ending to this story once, back in 2011, and the sequel rarely improves on the original.

Source: Read the original at Global Voices → Scored: Circus of Freaks · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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