“We have no choice,” Naoufel Jammali, a lawmaker of the Islamist-leaning Ennahda Party and a former cabinet minister. “We have to strengthen our ties with the international institutions which advise us to take these steps. Everyone keeps talking about a new economic model, but we have no idea how to create a new model.”

Politicians attribute the economic hardships to the lingering aftereffects of the global financial meltdown a decade ago as well as troubles in neighboring Libya, an oil-rich behemoth that once provided jobs, businesses and remittances but that is now a source of security threats, including terrorist attacks that have damaged Tunisia’s tourism industry.

They also blame political infighting in Parliament and the street protests, factors that would have been easier to suppress under the dictatorship.

In February, Parliament exploded into shouting matches over the process for naming a new central bank governor. “Before there was always one strong boss to make decisions,” said Mohamed Saidane, a lawmaker and member of the secular Nidaa Tounes party. “Now, we’re changing. There are 270 deputies and 25 parties and no one has a majority. The electoral system is slowing down the economy.”

But others pinpoint specific decisions made by the country’s leaders at the behest of the monetary fund and other Western powers that have worsened Tunisia’s problems. Last year the I.M.F. delayed a loan disbursement because it said the government wasn’t moving fast enough to sell off three banks and slash government jobs. It also coaxed Tunisia into adopting higher sales tax rates in an effort to reduce the 2018 budget deficit.

Tunisians were stunned when the fund’s Tunisia mission chief, Bjorn Rother, told Bloomberg last month that the dinar should fall even lower, a sentiment that baffled economists who worry that consumers are already suffering under soaring fuel and food costs and that the government is squeezed by debt payments denominated in dollars and euros. A Tunisian business website marveled, “Does Bjorn Rother want to kill the Tunisian economy?”