Poll counting is under way in Tunisia which has witnessed huge turnout in the first-ever free elections since the ouster of deposed President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.

Poll counting is under way in Tunisia which has witnessed huge turnout in the first-ever free elections since the ouster of deposed President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.

There was huge turnout in Sunday’s elections as voters exercised their rights to choose the 217-seat assembly which will re-write the constitution, choose a new interim government and set dates for parliamentary and presidential elections.

The Secretary General of the polling commission, Boubaker Bethabet, said 90 per cent of some 4.1 million citizens who registered ahead of the poll cast their votes.
No figures were available for the other 3.1 million voters who did not register but also had the right to vote.

More than 11,000 candidates, half of them women, ran for the elections,representing 80 political parties and several thousand independents.
Results were to be announced on Monday night. However, with the unexpectedly large number of ballot papers to count, election officials said plans to announce results might have to be delayed.

Some early forecasts suggested the Islamic party, En-Nahda, would emerge with the biggest share of the vote, with Tunisian state radio reporting on Monday that incomplete counts in two provincial cities, Sfax and Kef, had En-Nahda in the lead.
The Congress Party for the Republic, a leftist secular party, was in second place in Sfax, and Ettakatol, another socialist group, was running second in Kef, the radio said.

BOUAZIZI DEATH GAVE CHANCE TO JUSTICE
Nine months following the departure of Ben Ali, the mother of Mohamed Bouazizi, the young vegetable seller whose self-immolation last December set of the Tunisian revolt, praised the elections, saying the poll was a victory for dignity and freedom.

"Now I am happy that my son's death has given the chance to get beyond fear and injustice", Manoubia Bouazizi told the Reuters news agency.
“I'm an optimist, I wish success for my country", she added.