Tunisia: Provisional Results Suggest Islamists Advance

This post is part of our special coverage Tunisia Revolution 2011.

Provisional results of the October 23 election in Tunisia suggest that the Islamist party Ennahdha (The Renaissance) has won most of the votes. It is not clear if the party will obtain an overall majority. The Congress for the Republic came second, followed by the Democratic Forum for Labour and Liberties.

Lotfi Zitoun, a leader at Ennahdha, published his expectations on his Facebook page [ar]:

النتائج ستعلن بعد قليل توقعاتي ان تتحصل النهضة على عدد من المقاعد بين 50 و55 بالمائة يليها حزب المؤتمر من اجل الجمهورية
results will be announced shortly, I expect Ennahdha to obtain 50 to 55 per cent of the votes, followed by the Congress for the Republic
Counting the votes. Photo by the ONG I watch shared via Facebook

Counting the votes. Photo by the ONG I watch shared via Facebook

Alarabiya English tweets:

Islamist party says to get 60 seats in 217-member Tunisian assembly #Tunisia

This is according to the initial results in some of the electoral constituencies.

Though Rached Ghannoushi, head of the Ennahdha, claims that his party is ”moderate,” once the initial results started to spread secularists expressed their worries and fears that conservatives might jeopardise the secular values of the Tunisian state. Here are some of their reactions on Twitter.

@hamdanih:
لوكان جا البوعزيزي حي راهو عاود حرق روحو..#tnelec

If Bouazizi was still alive, he would have set himself on fire again

@FeveDeCacao: Musulmane…voir les islamistes accéder au pouvoir me fait froid dans le dos. J'espère avoir tort. #Libye #Tunisie #Tnelec

As a Muslim woman…watching the Islamists come to power is scary and disappointing. Hope I'm mistaken.

Other Tunisian citizens called for respecting and accepting the results.

Béhéeddine HAJRI writes [fr]:

après ce succès des premières élections libres .. maintenant le travail est lancé .. et au lieu d’insulter le peuple (c le cas malheureusement de la part de certains activistes qui se disent modernistes), il est grand temps d’analyser ces résultats .. de comprendre ce peuple pluriel ..

After the success of the free Tunisian election.. now it is time for work..and instead of insulting the people for their choice (unfortunately it is the case for some activists who consider themselves ”modernists”), it is high time to analyse the results..and understand that the people are pluralistic..

He adds:

respectons les voix des autres et avançons avec ce pays qui découvre tout un nouveau monde …

Let's respect the voices of others and move forward with this country which is discovering a whole new world

@JuveSimo tweets:

عندما اصطّف الشعب أمام الدوائر قالوا شعب مثقف وحضاري! وعندا اختار نفس الشعب النهضة تحوّل الى عربان متخلفة!! كفانا نفافا كفانا #tnelec

When the people stand in queues they say the people are civilised and educated! When the same people chose Ennahdha, they turn out to be backward. Enough, enough, with hypocrisy!

@IngMina_ tweets:

يا توانسي، اكبر امتحان ليك توا هو قبول النتائج حتى و لو كانت ضد اختيارك البارح #tunisia #tunisie #tnelec

Tunisian, your biggest test now is to accept the results even if they did not represent your choice

It is worth mentioning, that counting the votes is still underway, and that they are expected to be released on Tuesday afternoon. Tunisians elected their representatives yesterday in the first democratic election of the so called Arab Spring.

This post is part of our special coverage Tunisia Revolution 2011.

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