By Mariette le Roux
FRANCE PRESS
TUNIS: Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahda party prepared for coalition talks Tuesday as early results showed it dominating the Arab Spring’s first free elections.
Ennahda took 15 of the 39 seats from five domestic polling districts in the new constitution-writing assembly, the ISIE elections body announced, stressing the provisional nature of the tally.

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 center, put the leftist Congress for the Republic 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 followed with two seats, as did The Initiative, a party founded by a former minister in the Cabinet of Zine al-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.
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 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.”

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

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.

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 Nov. 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 polls, which it said were transparent with only “minor irregularities.”