Tunisia elections: An-Nahda party on course to win

Moderate Islamist party An-Nahda tipped for victory in Tunisia’s first free elections nine months after people’s revolution The moderate Islamist party An-Nahda is tipped for a historic victory in Tunisia’s first free elections, the first vote of the Arab spring. Nine months after a people’s revolution ousted the dictator Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali and sparked the Arab spring, Tunisians turned out in record numbers to vote for a caretaker assembly that has to rewrite the country’s constitution and govern until parliamentary elections in a year’s time. An-Nahda, which was banned for 10 years and brutally repressed under Ben Ali, with activists exiled, tortured and imprisoned,said it had taken the biggest share of the vote based on early predictions before the official results expected . The party campaigned on a moderate, pro-democracy stance that sought to allay secularist fears by vowing to respect Tunisia’s strong secular tradition and the most advanced women’s rights in the Arab world. The party compares itself to Turkey’s Islamist-rooted ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) – liberal and socially conservative. Said Ferjani, from An-Nahda’s political bureau, said: “We have to be careful about figures until the official results, but there’s a consensus that we’re around the 40% mark. It’s something that we were expecting. “We already have our ideas about the government. We are not dogmatic; we are highly pragmatic. It will be a broad national unity government. The new reality is that we have to do what we do for the Tunisian people – we go beyond old lines of argument or disagreement.” The 217-seat assembly has a specific role: to rewrite the constitution and set the date for parliamentary elections in a year’s time. It will also form a caretaker government. Aproportional representation system meant regardless of the number of votes, no one party could take anan overall majority. An-Nahda is expected to form an alliance with the centrist secularist Ettakatol party, which is forecast to win 15-20% of the vote. The party’s leader, Dr Mustapha Ben Jafaar, was banned from running for president under the old regime. He could now become interim president with an Islamist prime minister and key ministers. The centre-left Congress for the Republic Party, led by human rights campaigner Moncef Marzouki, also did well. The centrist PDP, once the major opposition, suffered by association with the old system and performed poorly. Kais Nigrou, of the the Modernist Democratic Pole, a coalition of the centre-left which ran a secular, feminist campaign to counter An-Nahda, said: “We accept the democratic result and we’ll be in opposition. “The diversity and openness of civil secular society in Tunisia is strong and isn’t going to change. We don’t see a threat from Islamists. If 40% voted for Islamists, 60% of society did not.” An An-Nahda win would be the first Islamist election success in the Arab world since Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian vote. Islamists won a 1991 election in Algeria, Tunisia’s neighbour, but the army annulled the result, provoking years of conflict. Tunisia Africa Tunisian elections 2011 Angelique Chrisafis guardian.co.uk

Posted by on October 24, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.