Tunisia to Syria: Instability prevails in all Arab Spring countries

More than a decade after the Arab Spring began in Tunisia, the anti-establishment movement finally materialised in Syria over the weekend.

In a lightening offensive launched late last month, the opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) overthrew five decades of dictatorial rule of the Assad family over the weekend, forcing President Bashar al-Assad to flee with his family to Russia.

With his ouster, Assad has become the latest dictator in West Asia and North Africa to be overthrown since the Arab Spring began in 2010. Before him, Tunisia’s Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi met similar fates.

Even though the Arab Spring dreamt of a democratic future in these West Asian and North African nations, the dream did not materialise. While the change of regime brought relief in the sense that decades of dictatorial rule was brought to an end in these nations, the fall of these leaders led to either new autocrats, such as in Egypt, or plunged these nations into years of political instability and conflict, such as in Libya and Yemen.

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How Arab Spring fared in Tunisia

The Arab Spring began with pro-democracy protests in Tunisia in 2010.

The protests led to the ouster exile of President Ben Ali in 2011, who had ruled since 1987.

After Ben Ali’s resignation, Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi took over, who was replaced by interim President Fouad Mebazaa the following day. An uneasy coalition government was formed and a new constitution was drafted and enacted in 2014.

For the first time in decades, Tunisia held free and fair elections in 2014 and then again witnessed peaceful elections and transfer of power in 2019.

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However, President Kais Saied reverted to autocratic ways soon after his election. He sacked the government in 2021 and suspended the parliament. He ruled by decree until 2022 when he bulldozed a new constitution via a referendum in which just 30 per cent people participated. The new referendum bestowed more powers with the president.

Since coming to power, Saied has put several prominent politicians behind bars and democratic values that the Arab Spring sought remains absent in spirit even if it is there in letter.

One autocrat replaced another in Egypt

The most notable ouster from the Arab Spring was arguably in Egypt where President Mubarak, who had ruled since 1981, was forced to resign in 2011.

Following Mubarak’s ouster, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), a body of senior military officers that took over Egypt. Mohammed Morsi was elected as the President of Egypt in 2012, but was ousted the following year in a military coup by Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, who became the de facto leader of the country. The next year, he was elected as the president and was then re-elected in 2018. He has therefore been at the helm of Egypt since 2013.

Sisi has ruled for more than a decade as a strongman.

The fall of Gaddafi in Libya

In February 2011, the anti-government protests against the four-decades-long rule of Muammar al-Gaddafi spiralled into a civil war that led to his ouster and execution.

As regime forces attacked demonstrators over weeks at Gaddafi’s orders, the support for the regime to waver even among the military. An opposition group, Transitional National Council (TNC), took shape. As Gaddafi’s forces continued to attack demonstrators, the United Nations (UN) authorised military action and, as a result, US, British, and French militaries attacked Libyan military and disabled much of Gaddafi’s air force.

The British, French, and Italian governments sent military advisers to assist the opposition forces in the war with Gaddafi’s forces.

With Western support, the opposition forces kept pressing and wresting control of the country from Gaddafi, cornering him in the Libyan city of Sirte. They finally found and executed him on October 20, bringing an end to his 42-year-old rule.

Gaddafi’s execution did not lead to stability. Instead, it led to greater political instability and economic misery in the country. As multiple parties staked claim to power, another civil war began in 2014 that continued till 2020. During this time, Libya witnessed living standards plunge as warfare among various factions and violence by the likes of Islamic State ravaged the country. Even today, the country is not deemed to be stable.

The worst humanitarian crisis in Yemen

As pro-democracy movements swept across West Asia and North Africa, a movement began against Yemen’s longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011.

Saleh was the President of North Yemen during 1978-90 and of the unified Yemen during 1990-2012.

While demonstrators wanted Saleh’s resignation, he clung on to power. The stalemate led to clashes and powerful factions of the military lent support to the opposition. A bomb blast made Saleh leave Yemen for Saudi Arabia. His absence allowed for a compromise and elections were finally held in 2012 in which Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi was elected president. He ruled for two years until 2014 when the ongoing civil war began in the country.

The Yemeni Civil War (2014-) is a conflict between the Iran-backed Houthis and the internationally-recognised government supported by Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE). The conflict plunged Yemen into the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, according to United Nations (UN).

By 2023, around 4.5 million people in Yemen had been displaced by the war and around 24.1 million, around 80 per cent of the population, were in need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.

The UNICEF maintains that Yemen is being ravaged by famine. The UN has also reported that the breakdown of basic healthcare services because of the war led to one of the worst cholera outbreaks in the country that’s suspected to have infected nearly 2.5 million people and killed nearly 4,000 people.

The UN has also said that over 350,000 had died in the conflict by 2020, with 60 per cent of them dying from war-induced hunger and healthcare crisis.

Arab Spring finally reaches Syria

In 2011, pro-democracy movement erupted in Syria which dictator Bashar al-Assad sought to suppress with brute force. This led to a civil war.

In the initial years of the war, Assad’s regime lost control of more than half of the country, but Russian military intervention in favour of Assad in 2015 turned the tides. With Russia, Iran, and Iran-backed militias, including Hezbollah, on his side, Assad’s forces regained control of most of the country with brute force.

With blessings of Russia, Assad resorted to indiscriminate bombing and usage of chemical weapons to assert his control over Syria.

In 2020, opposition-supporting Turkey and Assad-supporter Russia reached a ceasefire that essentially froze the war. Then, late last month, the Syrian opposition forces mounted a stunning offensive that toppled Assad’s regime over the weekend.

During these years, the terrorist group Islamic State also rose and established a state that it called Caliphate across large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Kurdish forces supported by a US-led coalition forces defeated the Caliphate over the years and the last stretch of Syrian land was freed from Islamic State’s hold in Baghuz in 2019.