Earlier this month, entrepreneurs in Tunisia had something big to celebrate: After two long years, the country’s parliament passed the Startup Act into law. In a particularly tech-appropriate move, Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed celebrated the news, tweeting, “Tunisia has just passed the Startup Act. One more step to take our economy into the digital age.”

It was a bright moment for Tunisia, whose economy has been in the news for all the wrong reasons these past months. Though the country is considered the sole political success of the Arab revolutions, seven years on, the country’s economy is struggling. According to the World Bank, unemployment is as high as 36%. The budget deficit in 2017 was 6% of the gross domestic product (GDP), foreign public debt is 71% of the GDP and annual inflation rose to 7.1% in February 2018. The country’s currency, the dinar, has depreciated 19% against the euro as compared to last year, and the price of goods and services has shot up.

On Jan. 1, 2018, the government passed the Finance Act, intended to reduce inflation and the deficit. Supported by the International Monetary Fund, the act included harsh austerity measures that hiked up the value-added tax on “non-essential items” as high as 300%. Though socio-economic demonstrations had been consistently happening across the country, protests erupted after the Finance Act and over 800 people were arrested for their involvement.

“The demonstrations … are about a legacy of economic inequality and the social and economic marginalization of certain parts of Tunisia. They are about corruption and a lack of accountability for such crimes. They are about the failure of the Essebsi government to remedy this legacy of socio-economic grievances,” wrote Noha Aboueldahab, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center.