Tunisia’s new president, Kais Saied, was sworn in on Wednesday. Observers have described the event as “historic” and the dawn of a new era. Saied himself described his victory as a “revolution within the constitutional legitimacy.” His ascent to the presidency has filled his country’s youth with enthusiasm, even as it has bewildered domestic and international commentators. Saied obtained more than 2.7 million votes, just over 72 percent, in the second round of the presidential election, trouncing his rival, television magnate Nabil Karoui, who got just one million. Saied got the backing of 90 percent of the youth and just less than 50 percent of the older generation. After the first round, in which Saied came in first place with 18 percent of the vote, it was the established Ennahda party that pledged support to him. This enabled Ennahda to get the largest number of seats in the national assembly during the subsequent parliamentary elections. Thus, Saied comes to the presidency with the backing of both the aspirational youth and conservative Islamists. Nothing in Saied’s background suggests he could aspire to high office. The former constitutional law professor has no political party, he hardly campaigned in the run up to the election, and has never held public office. He obtained no funding from any significant source, domestic or foreign, and has never even voted in previous parliamentary elections. The closest he came to public life was after the fall of the Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali presidency in 2011, when he patiently explained on television the intricacies of various provisions of the new constitution. In a country that has an elite that is Westernized, his positions on social issues have been very conservative. In regard to political organization, his ideas have been original. He advocates effective power being with local councils — these would then elect regional councils, which would in turn select candidates for the national assembly. This would see power effectively being exercised at the grassroots level; very different from the strong central authorities that are the norm in most states the world over. Clearly, the source of Saied’s appeal to his countrymen is their disenchantment with the politics and politicians that have defined their country since 2011. A people desperate for change have actually seen very little of it. Youth unemployment in the country is about 35 percent, with 40 percent of the unemployed being those with college degrees. Tunisia also stands at 73 out of 175 nations in a global corruption ranking. A commentator noted that most people felt they had been abandoned by their state; they reflected their dissatisfaction with the low turnout of just over 40 percent in the recent parliamentary elections. Amid this pervasive sense of disillusion with the new order, Saied is viewed as a beacon of hope. He is seen as “simple” and clean, in sharp contrast to the leaders who have dominated national affairs over the last eight years. The people of Tunisia voted for Saied with a strong expectation of change. This will not be easy. In his inaugural address, he was reassuring. He promised a “new era of clean governance and accountability.” He said that he would fight poverty and terrorism and expand the rights of women. He accepted Tunisia’s international obligations, suggesting he would go along with earlier commitments to the International Monetary Fund to effect wide-ranging, and painful, economic reforms, though some of the more onerous ones could be renegotiated. He is seen as ‘simple’ and clean, in sharp contrast to the leaders who have dominated national affairs over the last eight years. Talmiz Ahmad But the country and its president face daunting challenges. For, perhaps, Saied personifies an idea rather than an agenda. A Tunisian publication has pointed out that, throughout the campaign, he did not take clear positions on 24 of the 25 topics of national interest. Saied could discover that many of his ideas and ideals might hit against the rock of political reality. Practical issues relating to government formation will come up almost immediately. The parliamentary elections have given a truncated mandate: The two main parties are Ennahda and Karoui’s Qalb Tounes (Heart of Tunisia), with about 18 percent and 16 percent of the vote respectively. The rest of the seats are divided among five small parties, with about 5 percent of the vote each. While a coalition government is inevitable, setting it will be very difficult. Throughout the campaign, Ennahda and Qalb Tounes had projected themselves as reflecting two different ideas of Tunisia — one anchored in Islam and traditional values, the other secular and modern. The smaller parties are hostile to either one or both of the major parties and could prefer to sit in opposition. Though difficult, these challenges are not beyond the capacity of the nation’s leaders. Just as Tunisia has been a successful model of peaceful political transition in a deeply divided political order, it could show that economic reform and transformations in the lives of ordinary people can be achieved in a democratic framework. Talmiz Ahmad is an author and former Indian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE. He holds the Ram Sathe Chair for International Studies, Symbiosis International University, Pune, India.