Tunisian election: AU deploys election observer mission

Security guards at the voting station in Tunisia

Tunisian election: AU deploys election observer mission

Turn out has been huge in Tunisia's historic post-Arab Spring elections.

More than 11,000 candidates are running in the election, representing 80 political parties. A few thousand other candidates are running as independents.

The ballot, an extra large piece of paper, bears the names and symbols of the parties fielding candidates in each of the 33 districts, 6 of which are abroad.

About 4.4 million Tunisians, just a little under 60 per cent, registered to vote in the elections, and would pick a 217-member constituent assembly.

That multi-party body will, in addition to drafting a new constitution, appoint an interim president and a care-taker government for the duration of the drafting process.

Women with headscarves and without, former political prisoners, young people whose Facebook posts helped fuel the revolution, filled out in droves to exercise their franchise, in what is being described as a ''defining page-turning moment'' on the 23-years of former President Zine ElAbidine Ben Ali's rule.

The President of Tunisia's Independent High Authority for Elections, Mr Kamel Jendoubi, said 7,361 polling stations, serving the country's 27 constituencies, opened for voting from 7.00 am, to close at 7.00 pm.

Its a cacophony of choice in a country effectively under one-party rule since its independence from France in 1956 and where the popular Islamist party-Ennahda, was long banned.

Popular Islamist Party

Ennahda, is a moderate Islamic party whose victory, especially in a comparatively secular society like Tunisia, could have wide implications for similar religious parties in the region.

Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of the party, took his place in the queue outside a polling station in the El Menzah 6 district of the capital.

"This is an historic day", he said, accompanied by his wife and daughter, who were both wearing hijabs, the Islamic headscarves.

"Tunisia was born today. The Arab Spring was born today".
He was however, heckled outside the polling station by people shouting "terrorist", reflecting the seething tensions between Islamists and secularists.

If Tunisia's elections produce an effective new government, it will serve as an inspiration to pro-democracy advocates across the region, including in next-door Libya, where long-time dictator Moammar Gadhafi was killed last week by rebel forces.

Revolution

Voters streamed out in large numbers to polling stations to cast their ballots in the country's first free election, 10 months after a vegetable seller set fire to himself in an act of protest that started the Arab Spring uprisings.

Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation on January 14, prompted, by his despair at poverty, unemployment, corruption and government repression, provoked mass protests which forced President Zine al-Abidine to flee Tunisia.

The unexpected revolution on January 14 in the quiet Mediterranean country, cherished by European tourists for its sandy beaches and desert oases, set off a series of similar uprisings against entrenched leaders, in an event now called the Arab Spring, in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria.

In the 10 months since the uprising, Tunisia's economy and employment, part of the reason for the revolution in the first place, has only become worse, as tourists and foreign investors have stayed away.

Many have expressed indifference about the election out of frustration that new jobs have yet to appear and life has not improved since the revolution.

International Observers

The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Jean Ping, has approved the deployment of an election observern mission to Tunisia.

A statement issued AU headquaters in in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by the Information and Communications Department, said the mission would supervise the Constituent Assembly elections scheduled for today, Sunday Oct. 23.

The team, led by Mr Ahmed Sid’Ahmed, former Foreign Affairs Minister of Mauritania, is to carry out an independent and impartial observation of the electoral process in Tunisia.

The mission, to be deployed across the country, comprises representatives of AU member states, officials of national electoral bodies and members of the African Civil Society.

According to the AU statement, the Commission was invited by the Tunisian Government to deploy an election observer mission for the elections in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Durban Declaration of July 2002 on the principles regulating democratic elections in Africa.

In all, more than 5,000 foreign observers are monitoring the polls.
Voting is expected to close at 19:00 local time (18:00 GMT), while results are to be declared by the Authority on Monday.

NAN/AFP/Uche Iheanacho
Additional Research/Editing: Hajia Sani