Tunisia’s Ennahda Party won the lion’s share of votes in the landmark election to the constituent assembly with 90 seats. The Electoral Commission announced the final results late Thursday (Oct 27) night. The country also woke up to violent protests against the results in the town that started the revolution, Sidi Bouzid. The riots followed the decision by the electoral commission ISIE to disqualify the populist Alridha Chaabiya party (The Popular Petition) in four constituencies, including Sidi Bouzid, over undisclosed financial irregularities and hand the seven seats it would have won to other parties, Ennahda and the centre left Congress for the Republic (CPR) being the main beneficiaries.
In Sidi Bouzid, where Alridha had come top of the poll, some 4,000 angry residents attacked Ennahda’s headquarters and set fire to the town hall. Police resorted to tear gas but on Oct 28 morning the protestors were back on the streets. The municipal police station was reportedly left a smouldering wreck. Schools and public buildings had to be closed and a curfew imposed from 7 p.m. until 5 a.m. Saturday morning. By mid-afternoon, however, the town was said to be calm after other citizens broke up the protests.
Sidi Bouzid, where Tunisia’s revolution started in December when vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire because of police harassment, was the only constituency in the country where Ennahda failed to come first. Ennahda’s leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, called for calm in the town on Friday, promising it priority in the new Tunisian government’s development plans. However, he also blamed the violence on supporters of ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
ISIE’s decision to strip the party was greeted at the press centre in the Tunis’ Palais de Congress on Thursday evening by spontaneous applause from the assembled Tunisian journalists and media people. There was clapping and cheering; many started singing the national anthem.
Indications are that an Ennahda-CPR-Ettakatol coalition will happen. The Tunisian press on Friday spoke of a coalition “crystallising.” According to Ghannouchi, it would be a government that will favour a firmly free market economy, with the Tunisian dinar becoming fully convertible. The coalition negotiations are expected to take some time, although Ghannouchi has predicted they should be over within a month.
The Ennahda leader on Oct 26 sent the message that the government ushered in by the “Arab Spring” revolt will be business friendly. Ghannouchi went to great lengths to reassure secularists and the business community, nervous about the novel prospect of Islamists holding power, that they have nothing to fear.