The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a “porous” region to external influences and a regional setting where confrontation between international and regional powers is intense. In the last decade, the resurgence of Russian and Turkish competition for influence, the aggressive Iranian and Israeli foreign policies and the rise of intra-Sunni confrontation (Qatar and Turkey, on the one hand, and United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on the other) have magnified the level of interstate conflict. Interstate rivalries are described as pertinent to understanding regional politics, but little research engages with theoretically driven analyses that explain how rivalries halt political change toward democracy. Interstate rivalries reverberated into third countries, especially during periods of political turmoil and change. In this respect, the regime changes resulting from 2011 revolts have generated a considerable power void in countries living political transitions, increasing the battle for influence among external rival state actors. This article focuses on the competition for influence between Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in two countries undertaking political change: Tunisia and Libya. It examines ‘critical junctures’ of contemporary political history of Tunisia and Libya to measure the impact of interstate rivalries on the negotiation of a political transition among national political groups after the fall of the dictators. Relying on analysis of documentary sources (in Arabic, English and French) and semi-structured interviews with diplomats, political analysts and experts, this article argues that the financial, ideological and military resources that Qatar and UAE provided to competing Tunisian and Libyan national political groups have: a) affected their strategic calculations; b) influenced their decision-making at critical junctures of the political transition c) worsened divisions and complicated negotiation between them. This research sheds new light on the connection between regime change and interstate rivalries, showing how domestic and international processes intersect into a dynamic of interdependence.