Way out in front
October 25, 2011
Early election results released Tuesday evening showed that the Tunisian Islamist Party Ennahda is on track to win the largest number of seats in the country's new constitutional assembly.
Announcing the first official results of the poll, the Tunisian electoral commission said the party had won 18 out of the 44 seats counted so far.
The left-wing Congress for the Republic appeared to be their nearest rival, in second place with only six seats.
The results represented votes cast in Sfax, Tunisia's second city, and three smaller voting areas. Provisional official results on Monday showed Ennahda had won half of the 18 seats reserved for expatriate representatives.
The 217-seat assembly will be tasked with drawing up a new constitution, preparing for presidential and parliamentary elections set for late next year or early 2013, and appointing a transitional cabinet.
High turnout, fraud protests
There was a high turnout on Sunday as voters took part in the first election since the toppling of former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January.
However, some 400 people protested outside the headquarters of the electoral commission in the capital Tunis on Tuesday, alleging that Ennahda and other groups had used fraud to gain votes.
Various observers have expressed concern that Ennahda has links with the country's radical Islamist Salafist movement. Such connections are denied by the party, which has indicated that it intends to follow a moderate agenda.
The party claimed victory on Monday, although it remains unclear whether it would be able to form the necessary alliances with other political groupings to form a viable coalition.
Author: Richard Connor (AFP, AP)
Editor: Martin Kuebler