Islamist party expects 40 pc of vote in Tunisia polls

Islamist party  expects 40 pc of vote in Tunisia polls

Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda party said on Monday it expected to capture about 40 per cent of the vote with ballot counting under way in the country's first-ever democratic elections.

"We are not far from 40 per cent. It could be a bit more or a bit less, but we are sure to take 24 (of the 27) voting districts," Samir Dilou, a member of Ennahda's political bureau told the news agency, quoting "our sources".

Analysts widely predicted Ennahda to win the most votes but fall short of a majority in yesterday's elections for a new 217-member assembly that will rewrite the Constitution and appoint a president to form a caretaker government.

The elected assembly will decide on the country's system of government and how to guarantee basic liberties, including women's rights, which many fear Ennahda would seek to diminish despite its assurances to the contrary.

It will also have interim authority to write laws and pass budgets. Ennahda says it models itself on the ruling AKP party in Turkey, another Muslim-majority country which like Tunisia to date has a secular state.

Its critics have accused Ennahda of preaching modernism in public and radicalism in the mosques, but Tunisia's progressive left remains divided with party leaders having failed to form a pre-vote alliance.Media agencies