By Bouazza Ben Bouazza

Associated Press 
 

TUNIS: Tunisia will hold an election on Oct. 23, not in July as planned, because conditions are not yet right for the first vote since the ouster of the country’s autocratic president, the prime minister announced Wednesday.
The success or failure of elections in Tunisia would send a strong signal to other nations in the region.
“The world is watching us. Tunisia today has an extraordinary image because its revolution happened peacefully, without weapons,” Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi said after announcing the new election date.

“The wind of freedom has blown through other countries … but we will be the only ones to succeed in putting into place a democratic government,” he added, implicitly referring to the fighting in Libya, Yemen and Syria.
The elections had been planned for July 24, but Tunisia’s electoral commission proposed last month they be postponed, saying much more needed to be done to organize the vote, including putting three million Tunisians into the electoral database and ensuring hundreds of thousands of others get valid identity cards.

Those in favor of the July date had said it is needed to bring political stability to a country now experiencing simmering tensions and occasional deadly eruptions of violence.
Essebsi said the most important thing is to hold “free, transparent and credible” elections.
The vote is for a constituent assembly to write a new constitution that would pave the way for legislative and presidential elections.

Tunisia’s nascent political movements have said they need more time to prepare for elections in a country that was dominated for decades by the ruling party and heavy-handed security forces of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
Under Ben Ali’s 23-year reign, a single party known as the RCD, which is now officially dissolved, controlled the country.
The regime was finally brought down by popular protests Jan. 14.
Once one of the most tightly controlled dictatorships in the region, Tunisia has witnessed an explosion of new political movements with 81 new parties officially registered.

More established political parties such as the center-left Progressive Democratic Party and the Islamist Ennahda originally opposed a delay in the elections, but have since rallied around the prime minister’s speech.
“We are in favor of Essebsi’s approach and will use all our efforts to make the election date succeed,” said Nourredine Bhiri of Ennahda.
Issam Chebbi, the leader of the PDP, meanwhile, said he “supported without reservation” the prime minister’s speech.

The new assembly will decide, among other things, whether Tunisia gets a presidential or parliamentary system, and whether separation of religion and state becomes part of the law.
Since Ben Ali’s departure, the country has continued to be wracked by strikes and protests, often by activists trying to keep pressure on the government to enact reforms.
“The government, which has only been in power for the last three months, does not have a magic wand to resolve all the problems in such a small amount of time,” said Essebsi, calling for an end to the strikes and the sit-ins and pleading for patience.