FERNANA, Tunisia, Oct 5, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Farmer Chedliya Mzrighi, who is working her field along with other women in northwest Tunisia, has little hope that things will change after the country's election on Sunday.

"We have nothing here," said the 47-year-old in the impoverished Fernana area, her back curbed under the scorching sun as she shovelled herbs off the field. "We have no running water, no electricity."

Earning a mere 10 dinars (about $3) a day, she struggles to provide food and other necessities for her three children.

As Tunisian president Kais Saied seeks re-election on Sunday, weak economic growth and high inflation are causing hardship for people like her, while reducing the state's ability to invest.

During Saied's five-year term in office, which has been accompanied by a crackdown on democratic freedoms, Tunisia's annual economic growth has slowed to just 0.4 percent of GDP last year, according to World Bank figures.

"We are very poor, below zero," Chedliya said. "I feel that we are not really Tunisians, otherwise they would have solved our problems."

Her home is a bare dwelling with no toilet and unpainted walls exposing weathered red bricks.

It was built by her husband, who has left to seek work in Sousse, some 300 kilometres away in the south-east, despite suffering from health problems.

With a maximum of 200 dinars ($65) a month in a country where the minimum wage is set at 460 dinars, Chedliya wonders how her son and daughters aged between 15 and 21 can do their homework in a house without electricity.

The eldest left the village for neighbouring Jendouba, where she studies law, but without a computer.

"How will she continue her studies?" asked her mother.

Saying she survives on her neighbours' help, Chedliya said she recently saw Saied speaking with women farmers on television.

She regrets that she has "received no help from the state" despite numerous pleas to local representatives.

- 'Where's the State?' -

Sihem Ghouibi, a 55-year-old widow, said her five sons and daughter, now all older than 18, had not managed to continue their studies beyond high school and left Fernana.

Saying she feels abandoned, she asked: "Where is the state? No one comes to help."

Fernana, where half of the 52,000 inhabitants live in the countryside, is one of Tunisia's poorest regions and has been affected by the country's fifth consecutive year of drought, which has hit agricultural output.

The poverty rate there stood at nearly 37 percent in 2020, according to the World Bank, which highlighted "weak basic infrastructure, high unemployment and illiteracy rates and a school dropout problem".

Women who spoke to AFP said they would vote on Sunday because of the "duty of being Tunisian", hoping that things will get better.

But prospects for the country, which has been struggling with crippling national debt, remain bleak.

The past five years have seen "the majority of indicators scaling down, with a growth rate that failed to reduce poverty, inequality, and unemployment," economist Aram Belhadj told AFP.

Even if the Tunisian state continues to provide free education and health services, the lingering problem is "purchasing power, which has significantly deteriorated," he added.

With inflation running at 7.0 percent, affording food and other commodities has become costly even for the middle classes.

"We don't know where our economy is headed," Belhadj added. "We need clear public policy."

Citing Saied's government reshuffles, he said political instability had also deterred investment, while corruption and bureaucracy were also weighing on business.

- Potential -

Tunisia's debt currently hovers at around 80 percent of its GDP, compared to 67 percent before Saied took office, with repayment costs reducing the funds available for social and development programmes, said Belhadj.

In Fernana's cultural centre, its director Boudjemaa Maaroufi decried a lack of government funding, showing a computer room "with very old tools".

The centre is hoping for funding from the European Union for a podcast recording studio aimed at attracting more young people -- one of many projects dependent on foreign aid from Europe or the United States.

"It's true that there is poverty in Fernana, low-income families unable to finance their children's studies, and a lack of jobs for young graduates," said Ahlem Ghazouani, head of local JCI association which provides leadership and entrepreneurship workshops for young people.

"But there are more and more NGOs, university clubs, and youth and cultural centres that are trying to change this reality," she said.
Waad Khemiri, a 24-year-old environmental biology graduate, remains hopeful.

"We have rich forest resources, including cork oaks, as well as young people with a lot of potential in Fernana," she said.