Ennahda ahead by 40% in Tunisia vote

Election officials in Tunisia are counting votes after the country’s first free election, with the moderate Islamist Ennahda Party expected to win about 40 percent of the vote, Press TV reported.

Before the election, the four leading parties were believed to be Ennahda (The Renaissance), the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), which is a secular party which was legal in the former regime, the Democratic Forum for Labour and Liberties or Ettakatol, which is a socialist party, and finally Congress for the Republic (CPR) which is a left secular party.

The leader of Tunisia’s center-left PDP party has already conceded defeat.

Tunisians went to the polls on Sunday to elect a 217-member Constituent Assembly from among more than eleven-thousand candidates.

The election commission says official results will be released later in the day or on Tuesday. And that the turnout was reportedly over 90 percent, exceeding all expectations.

The elected assembly is expected to rewrite the constitution after two decades under former dictator ruler Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.

About 5,000 Tunisian observers as well as 530 foreign observers reportedly monitored the electoral process.

Former President Ben Ali was ousted following protests in January. Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia as the Tunisian Revolution gained momentum.