The Arab Spring's First Election: The Deal Seems Sealed »
The moderate Islamist party An-Nahda is tipped for a historic victory inTunisia’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.
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.