Coalition talks with Tunisia’s Islamists have begun, leftist leader says

Coalition talks have begun with Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahda party, which early election results showed taking the lead in historic polls, the head of the leftist Ettakatol party said Tuesday.

“Discussions have started with all the political partners, including Ennahda,” Mustapha Ben Jafaar, leader of Ettakatol, one of the highest-placed leftist parties, told AFP.

The talks “will continue pending the announcement of the definitive results,” said Ben Jafaar, who announced his willingness to “assume the highest responsibility” in an interim executive.

Ennahda took the lead in early official results announced by the ISIE electoral commission, with 15 of 39 seats in five polling districts, including the key cities of Sousse and Sfax.

And results announced Monday showed Ennahda winning half of the 18 seats reserved for expatriate assembly representatives in an early vote held abroad last week.

This meant Ennahda had taken 24 of the 57 seats accounted for so far in the 217-member assembly that will rewrite Tunisia’s constitution and appoint a caretaker government.

There were 27 polling districts in total on Tunisian soil, and six abroad.

“We will publish the results piecemeal. The mechanisms of counting demand time,” ISIE secretary general Boubaker Bethabet said in Tunis.

The provisional results for the eastern coastal cities of Sousse and Sfax, Tunisia’s second city, as well as Jendouba in the northwest and Kebili, a desert town in the centre, put the leftist Congress for the Republic (CPR) in second place with six seats.

It was followed by the Petition for Justice and Development, a list led by independent candidate Hachmi Haamdi, a rich London-based businessman, with five seats, and the leftist Ettakatol with four.

The Democratic Progressive Party (PDP) followed with two seats, as did The Initiative, a party founded by a former minister in the cabinet of Zine el Abidine Ben Ali who was ousted in a popular uprising in January.

Massive numbers of voters Sunday elected members of the new assembly that will have interim authority to write laws and pass budgets.

It will decide on the country’s system of government and how to guarantee basic liberties, including women’s rights, which many in Tunisia fear Ennahda would seek to diminish despite its assurances to the contrary.

Complicated negotiations

Ennahda has already claimed to have taken the biggest block of votes, between 30 and 40 percent – hailing the start of what is expected to be complicated negotiations for a majority coalition.

To form a majority, Ennahda will have to negotiate with the next biggest parties, all on the leftist, liberal side of the political spectrum.

CPR leader Moncef Marzouki has insisted that no firm agreement was made in pre-poll talks with Ennahda that saw other leftist parties accuse his party of seeking “a pact with the devil”.

But he defended the need to form a broad alliance to strengthen the assembly and give the caretaker government “the means to govern”.

For its part, Ettakatol had refused all pre-poll approaches while insisting on its intention to be part of a national unity government.

Ettakatol leader Ben Jafaar said he would seek the interim presidency in an interview with Belgian daily Le Soir.

Asked on the paper’s website whether he would run for president, Ben Jafaar said: “But of course! I believe my candidacy can embody a consensual willingness to federate and to appease.”

Early official results show his party garnering a little under 15 percent of the votes running close behind the CRP.

The centre-left PDP party, tipped as Ennahda’s main challenger before the vote, conceded defeat on Monday.

Analysts have told AFP that Ennahda, even in a majority alliance, would be unable to “dictate” its program to the assembly, having no choice but to appease its alliance partners, a moderate-minded society, and the international community on whose investment and tourism the country relies heavily.

Leftist parties may also seek to form a majority bloc against Ennahda.

The Modernist Demoratic Pole, a grouping of five liberal parties, said Tuesday that no official coalition talks have started, but stressed it would seek an alliance of democratic parties.

“We need the biggest possible force to represent and protect modernist values,” leader Ahmed Brahim told AFP.

The Turkish model

Ennahda says it models itself on the ruling AKP party in Turkey, another Muslim-majority country which, like Tunisia to date, is a secular state.

But its critics accuse the party of preaching modernism in public and radicalism in the mosques.

Seeking to reassure secularists in Tunisia and elsewhere who see a threat to their liberal, modernist values, party officials said they would bring two secularist parties into a broad interim coalition that would govern the country.

“This is an historic moment," said Zeinab Omri, a young woman in a hijab Islamic headscarf who was among a cheering crowd outside the Ennahda headquarters when party officials claimed victory late on Monday.

“No one can doubt this result,” she said. “This result shows very clearly that the Tunisian people is a people attached to its Islamic identity.”

Western diplomats say Ennahda is largely funded by Tunisian businessmen, which they say means the party will pursue pro-market economic policies.

The party also sought to show it could represent all Tunisians, including the large number who take a laissez-faire view of Islam's strictures, drink alcohol, wear revealing clothes and rarely visit the mosque.

Secularist opponents say they believe this is just a cleverly constructed front that conceals more radical views, especially among Ennahda’s rank and file in the provinces.

Ben Ali was toppled in an uprising that sparked region-wide revolts which claimed their latest Arab strongman last Thursday with the killing of Muammar Qaddafi of Libya.

Tunisia’s electoral system was designed to include as many parties as possible in drafting the new constitution, expected to take a year, ahead of fresh national polls.

The current interim government will remain in power until the assembly appoints a new president, not expected before November 9.

About 100 Tunisians protested Tuesday outside the headquarters of the ISIE against “fraud” they claimed had marred the country’s first-ever democratic vote.

“No, no to fraud,” chanted the group of mainly young people, calling for a probe into the finances of parties like Ennahda, widely suspected of being propped up by Gulf countries despite a ban on foreign funding for parties contesting the election.

But the European Union observer mission declared itself “satisfied” with the conduct of the polls, which it said were transparent with only “minor irregularities.”