By Zach Waksman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa
TUNIS, Tunisia – Monday was a historic day for Tunisia as the results of its election following January’s revolution were announced. The moderate Islamist Ennahda party garnered 89 out of 217 seats in the country’s new constituent assembly, more than three times that of the next closest party. The elected members face the task of assembling a government and writing a new constitution. More than half of the electorate turned out to vote.
The victory for Ennahda, which had once been banned from taking part in Tunisian politics, marks a comeback for a strong, organized force whose ability to function had been crippled for decades. Unlike political parties in the United States, Ennahda is also “a social movement,” according to Noah Feldman, a law professor at Harvard University. This organization “gave it a substantial leg up when it came to organizing dedicated volunteers to motivate voters,” he wrote in a column for Bloomberg.
Ennahda is expected to form a coalition with the next two leading vote-getters, the left-wing Congress for the Republic (CPR) and the Popular Petition. Negotiations to assemble the new government are still underway, but CPR leader Moncef Marzouki was selected as the interim president. Marzouki’s position will be largely ceremonial, other than the possibility of mediating disputes between leading parties in the assembly. Mustapha Ben Jaafar, head of the fourth-place Democratic Forum for Labor and Liberties, had been pushed as president, but it bogged down in negotiations. He has since been offered the position of assembly president, but has yet to accept. The interim government will also retain defense minister Abdelkrim Zbidi, who has gained respect among Tunisians for using the military to maintain order without being active in the political game.
Two parties ran anti-Islamist platforms, focusing on Ennahda in particular. They won a combined 21 seats in the new assembly.
“Unlike the young secularists, many Tunisians see Islam as a defining feature of their personal and political identities,” Feldman said in an effort to explain why Ennahda faired so well. “Islamists are also highly skilled at reaching across economic and social classes to build support. In poor rural areas, the mosque is sometimes the only gathering place, and Islam can be leveraged to provide a simple, time-tested and powerful political message.”
The elections were highly organized, even though the North African country had only four months to do so. Kamel Jendoubi, leader of the election commission, said his group “clearly contributed to restoring the trust of Tunisians in their electoral process.” He told the Associated Press that he planned to ask the assembly to make the commission a permanent aspect of future contests.
The assembly will hold its first meeting on November 22, and the interim government that it appoints will remain in place until the next round of elections, which has been tentatively scheduled for next year.
For more information, please see:
Washington Post — Tunisian Parties Choose Veteran Human Rights Activist as Country’s New Interim President — 15 November 2011
Al Jazeera — Final Tunisian Election Results Announced — 14 November 2011
AllAfrica.com — Tunisia: Islamists Win 89 of 217 Seats — 14 November 2011
Washington Post — Final Tunisian Election Results Confirm Win for Islamist Party — 14 November 2011
Al Jazeera — Tunisia Coalition to Be Formed in ‘Days’ — 10 November 2011
Bloomberg — Islamists’ Victory in Tunisia a Win for Democracy — 30 October 2011
