Islamist party emerges as Tunisia's biggest election winner

[FarCenter]

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.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15487792,00.html

[FarCenter]

1. Moderate Islamists claim win, reach out to liberals

Partial results for Tunisia's first democratic elections have confirmed predictions of a victory for moderate Islamist party Ennahda, which has said it will reach out to centre-left parties to form a "stable political alliance".

Tunisia’s moderate Islamist party, Ennahda, has won the biggest share of votes in five cities, but has fallen short of a majority of seats in any of them, according to partial results released by Tunisia’s independent election commission on Tuesday.

A commission spokesman said Islamist candidates had won 17 of the 39 seats up for grabs in the five cities, though adding that more time was necessary before a final count in the country’s first democratic elections could be released.

Earlier Ennahda claimed victory in Sunday's vote, saying it would reach out to centre-left parties in an attempt to ease concerns that the results posed a threat to liberal values.

“We will spare no effort to create a stable political alliance,” Abdelhamid Jlazzi, Ennahda’s campaign manager, announced Monday outside party headquarters in Tunis.

http://www.france24.com/en/20111025-tunisia-constiutency-election-vote-ben-ali-ennahda

[ClarkUSA]

2. They're a MODERATE Islamist party; not whackos. Also, the election was remarkably free and fair...

... according to international observers. I can only hope 2012 will be the same, given GOP voter suppression/fraud attempts.

[Tx4obama]

3. A win for 'gender equality'.

Tunisia Elections 2011: Ennahda Islamist Party Official Winner

SNIP

Ennahda officials have promised a broad-based coalition, and vowed to wary Tunisians that democratic principles as well as gender equality will be respected in line with Muslim Tunisia's strong secular tradition.

SNIP

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/27/tunisia-elections-2011-ennahda_n_1062709.html

[MedleyMisty]

4. So have you heard about how many women were elected?

Women won 49 of the 217 seats. But I guess that doesn't fit with the Islamists are evil, they treat their women even worse than we treat ours, so we need to make sure they stay under dictatorships narrative.

[Tx4obama]

5. Huh?

49 out of 217 is around 25%

In the US Senate only 17 of the 100 senators are female, which is only 17% (and needs to be changed dramatically in the next election!)


Looks to me our female gender in Tunisia is on a roll so far :)

[JI7]

6. what matters is if they can keep a stable democracy with free elections

so people can vote out those they don't like in the next election.