Tunisia Islamists win vote amid poll clashes

TUNIS, Tunisia - The Islamist Ennahda Party was officially declared winner of Tunisia's election, setting it up to form an Islamist-led government, as poll violence erupted in the town where uprisings began.

Ennahda has tried to reassure secularists nervous about the prospect of Islamist rule in one of the Arab world's most liberal countries by saying it will respect women's rights and not try to impose a Muslim moral code on society.

Protesters angry their fourth-placed party had been eliminated from the election set fire to the mayor's office in Sidi Bouzid, where 10 months ago vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in a protest against officialdom.

His act ignited unrest that led to the fall of Tunisia's leader Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and inspired uprisings in Egypt, Libya and other Arab states.

Ennahda's leader Rachid Ghannouchi paid tribute to the provincial Tunisian town's role in Tunisia's revolution.

"We salute Sidi Bouzid and its sons who launched the spark, and we hope that God will have made Mohamed Bouazizi a martyr," said the Islamic scholar, who spent 22 years in exile in Britain.

"We will continue this revolution to realize its aims of a Tunisia that is free, independent, developing and prosperous in which the rights of God, the Prophet, women, men, the religious and the non-religious are assured because Tunisia is for everyone," Ghannouchi told a crowd of cheering supporters.

Announcing the results, election commission members said Ennahda had won 90 seats in the 217-seat assembly, which will draft a new constitution, form an interim government and schedule new elections, probably for early 2013.

The Islamists' nearest rival, the secularist Congress for the Republic, won 30 seats, the commission members told a packed hall in the capital, ending a four-day wait since Sunday's poll for the painstaking count to be completed.

Ennahda, banned before January's revolution, fell short of an absolute majority in the new assembly. It is expected to broker a coalition with two of the secularist runners-up and, with them, form a government.

Reuters