Tunisia’s moderate Islamist party was preparing to lead a coalition government on Tuesday after its election win sent a message to the region that once-banned Islamists are challenging for power after the “Arab Spring”.
With election officials still counting the ballot papers, the Ennahda party said its own, unofficial tally showed it had won Sunday’s vote, the first since the uprisings which began in Tunisia and spread through the region.
Seeking to reassure secularists in Tunisia and elsewhere who see a threat to their liberal, modernist values, party officials said they would bring two secularist parties into a broad interim coalition that will govern the country.
“This is an historic moment,” said Zeinab Omri, a young woman in a hijab, or Islamic head scarf, who was among a cheering crowd outside the Ennahda headquarters when party officials claimed victory late on Monday.
“No one can doubt this result. This result shows very clearly that the Tunisian people is a people attached to its Islamic identity,” she said.
Two days after an unprecedented 90 percent of voters turned out for the election, officials were still counting the ballot papers in some areas. They said nationwide results would not be ready before Tuesday afternoon.
Sunday’s vote was for an assembly which will sit for one year to draft a new constitution. It will also appoint a new interim president and government to run the country until fresh elections late next year or early in 2013.
The voting system has built-in checks and balances which make it nearly impossible for any one party to have a majority, compelling Ennahda to seek alliances with secularist parties, which will dilute its influence.
Moncef Marzouki, the former dissident whose secularist Congress for the Republic was in second place according to unofficial results, said he was ready to work with Ennahda and with other parties.
Islamists claim win in Tunisia’s Arab Spring vote
