Scouting for plastic refuse along the capital's broken streets, Mohammed describes brighter days working in Tunisia's once-booming tourism industry, earning salary, room and board entertaining Europeans.
"Before, Tunisia was the icon of the Arab world," says Mohammed, lean and deeply lined at 46, who declines to give his last name.
"I didn't vote," Mohammed said, counting among 70% of eligible Tunisians, out of opposition or apathy, who declined to participate in a July 25 referendum on Saied's charter, which passed anyway."I don't trust politicians." Also shaping the country's trajectory will be whether Saied can retain his fading but still-sizable support -- and whether Tunisians have the will and energy to return to the streets if they believe yet another government has failed them.
Yet Ben Ali's 2011 ouster, triggering the broader Arab Spring uprising, was fueled by the same bread-and-butter worries as today. Only now, things are worse. "We don't even have the money to buy things like cooking oil," he says."We can't live another decade like this." Publicly, Western leaders have offered a low-key response to Saied's moves. But when Washington last month voiced concern about an"erosion of democratic norms," Tunisian Foreign Minister Othman Jerandi pushed back, calling the statement an"interference in national internal affairs."