[ 2011-10-22 ]

Tunisians gear up for historic vote
TUNIS (AFP) - Tunisian voters on Saturday weighed
their choices on the eve of the Arab Spring's
historic first elections nine months after the
surprise toppling of strongman Zine el Abidine Ben
Ali that started it all.

Campaigning ended at midnight for the vote the
previously banned Islamist Ennahda party is tipped
to win, with the ISIE independent polling
commission reminding candidates and journalists
that Saturday would be an "election silence day".

"Any overstepping or breach ... amounts to an
electoral crime punishable by law," it warned in a
statement.

On Sunday, Tunisia's 7.2 million eligible voters
have been called to elect a 217-member assembly
that will rewrite the constitution after two
decades under Ben Ali.

The seemingly entrenched dictator was forced to
flee to Saudi Arabia in January, a month into a
leaderless uprising driven by social injustice,
poverty and corruption.

The assembly will also have the loaded task of
appointing an interim president and a caretaker
government that will remain in place for the
duration of the drafting process, expected to take
a year.

Voters will choose from 11,686 candidates on 1,517
lists -- 828 for political parties, 655 for
independents and 34 for party coalitions.

Political party volunteers swarmed the streets of
Tunis on the last day of campaigning Friday,
handing out flyers in a festive atmosphere as
thousands flocked to an Ennahda rally in a poorer
suburb.

"We will recognise the results of the elections,
we will congratulate the winners, no matter
Ennahda's score," party leader Rached Ghannouchi
told supporters, adding: "To date, the campaign
has been acceptable."

The party, expected to win up to 30 percent of the
vote, had warned Wednesday of vote-rigging and
vowed new uprisings if it detects electoral
fraud.

The Progressive Democratic Party also held its
closing rally Friday, its leader Maya Jribi urging
voters to "show the world the true image of an
open and moderate Tunisia."

The latest opinion polls put the PDP in second
place.

The constituent assembly will have to address such
crucial issues as the form of the new government
and guarantees of basic rights, including gender
equality, which many fear Ennahda would seek to
diminish.

The stakes are high. The success or failure of the
election will send a strong signal to the people
of the Arab world who drew courage from Tunisia's
revolutionary example to start their own
uprisings, scoring its latest triumph with the
killing Thursday of Libya's Moamer Kadhafi.

Claiming to model itself on Muslim Turkey's
secular state, Ennahda has sought to reassure a
divided electorate by promising not to curb
women's rights, widely considered the most liberal
in the Arab world.

But secularists have denounced what they call the
party's double-speak, accusing it of being
modernist in public but radical in the mosques.

More than 100 political parties in all will
contest Sunday's polls, but the progressive left
remains divided with party leaders having ruled
out a pre-vote alliance.

Elections will be secured by more than 40,000
police and soldiers and witnessed by some 13,000
local and more than 600 international observers,
as well as about 1,000 journalists and bloggers.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-Moon said through his
spokesperson in New York late Friday he would be
following the elections with "keen interest."

"Tunisia's example has inspired the region and the
world, and these elections are of great importance
in the country's democratic transition," he said.

Source - AFP

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