Tunisia goes to the polls for historic Arab Spring vote

[Jefferson23]

A sharply divided but overwhelmingly enthusiastic Tunisia went to the polls, the country that opened the path to a year of revolutions putting the Arab Spring to its first democratic test.

By Jonathan Mitchell in Tunis and Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent

9:05PM BST 23 Oct 2011

Election officials said that turnout had passed 70 per cent two hours before the voting booths closed, and had been above 80 per cent in some areas.

Long queues lined up across the country. Ennahda, the Islamist Party, has been predicted to emerge as the strongest single party when the count is declared on Tuesday, with as much as 40 per cent of the vote.

But in a sign of how divisive its message of putting an end to half a century of nationalist, aggressively secular rule has been, its leader Rached Ghannouchi was jeered and heckled after he cast his ballot in Tunis, with opponents shouting out that he was a "terrorist".

snip* But among those who voted yesterday were the family of Mohammed Bouazizi, a fruit-and-vegetable seller who killed himself by setting himself on fire last December after having his cart confiscated. That event turned into nationwide protests and then a movement that toppled his own president and spread across the region.

in full: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/tunisia/8844715/Tunisia-goes-to-the-polls-for-historic-Arab-Spring-vote.html

[Jefferson23]

1. Hundreds of Tunisians protest over alleged fraud in first Arab Spring election

Protesters say Islamist Ennahda party used fraud to gain votes in election on Sunday; unofficial results indicate Ennahda won biggest share of votes.

By Reuters

About 400 people protested in the Tunisian capital on Tuesday, alleging that the Islamist Ennahda party and other groups had used fraud to win votes in Sunday's election.

Unofficial results indicate that Ennahda won the biggest share of the votes in the election, which was 10 months after Tunisia set in motion the "Arab Spring" uprisings by ousting its autocratic president.

The protesters gathered outside a building used by the commission overseeing the vote, where they were surrounded by more than 100 police officers.

They carried banners which read: "What democracy?" and "Shame on you Ghannouchi!", a reference to Ennahda's leader Rachid Ghannouchi.

"There has been falsification even before the vote. There are parties like Ennahda which gave money to voters," said Saifallah Hanachi, one of the demonstrators.

"We are not against Islam, but Ghannouchi's party should be punished for these violations of the election law," Amira Ben Yahia, another demonstrator, said.

Officials with the election commission said there have been only minor violations, and foreign election observers said they were broadly satisfied with how polling was conducted.

The election is for an assembly which will sit for a year to write a new constitution. The victory by Ennahda has troubled some secularists. They say their liberal, modern values are under threat, though Ghannouchi denies this.


http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/hundreds-of-tunisians-protest-over-alleged-fraud-in-first-arab-spring-election-1.391960