Tunisia Marks seventh anniversary of a revolution that saw the ouster of its autocratic leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali Sunday Jan 14,2018

 

Tunisia on Sunday Jan 14,2018 marked the seventh anniversary of a revolution that saw the ouster of its autocratic leader, sparking the region-wide Arab Spring. But Tunisia’s revolutionary spirit never died, and austerity seems to be breathing new life into it.

Thousands of people on Sunday thronged Habib Bourguiba Avenue in central Tunis to mark the end of longtime leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s 24-year rule in 2011. But although it was supposed to be a day of celebration – honouring the country’s hard-won freedoms – it became a launchpad for yet another wave of protests against the government.

Poverty-stricken Tunisia has been plagued by unrest since the beginning of the year when the government introduced a series of tax and price hikes under the name of a new “finance law”. The measures added fuel to the fire in a country where unemployment among the young already runs at a 35-percent high, and follows the government’s unpopular move last year to offer amnesty to the corruption-accused civil servants who served under Ben Ali

On Saturday Jan 13,2018, on the eve of the Arab Spring anniversary, the government made an attempt to quell the frustrations and pledged a 70 million dinar (€23.5 million) action programme to help the country’s poorest (about 120,000 Tunisians), offering in addition free health care for the unemployed. The government also announced the creation of an aid fund to help poor families acquire housing.