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Tunisians vote: “I think the Islamists could win. It’s not want I want. They may try to change the way I live”

Oct 23, 2011 8:15 am By Marisol Seibold

Now, are those in Tunisia who oppose Islamic rule racists, or are they Islamophobes? It has to be one or the other, or both, right? An update on this story. “Huge turnout in Tunisia’s Arab Spring election,” from Reuters, October 23:

TUNIS, Oct 23 (Reuters) – Tunisian voters poured into polling stations to vote on Sunday in their country’s first free election, 10 months after a vegetable seller set fire to himself in an act of protest that started the Arab Spring uprisings.

The leader of an Islamist party predicted to win the biggest share of the vote was heckled outside a polling station by people shouting “terrorist” — highlighting tensions between Islamists and secularists that are also being felt in other countries touched by the Arab Spring.

Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation, prompted by his despair at poverty and government repression, provoked mass protests which forced President Zine al-Abidine to flee Tunisia. This in turn inspired revolts in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria.

Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of the moderately Islamist Ennahda party, took his place in the queue outside a polling station in the El Menzah 6 district of the capital.

“This is an historic day,” he said, accompanied by his wife and daughter, who were both wearing hijabs, or Islamic headscarves. “Tunisia was born today. The Arab Spring was born today.”

But as he emerged from the polling station, about a dozen people shouted at him: “Degage” French for “Go away,” and “You are a terrorist and an assassin! Go back to London!”

Ghannouchi, who spent 22 years in exile in Britain, has associated his party with the moderate Islamism of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. He has said he will not try to impose Muslim values on society.

But the party’s rise is worrying Tunisia’s secularists who believe their country’s liberal, modernist traditions are now under threat. […]

A final election rally on Friday illustrated the party’s contradictions. Suad Abdel-Rahim, a tall, glamorous Ennahda candidate who does not wear a veil, addressed the crowd.

But many books on sale on the fringes of the rally were by writers who belong to the strict Salafist branch of Islam. They believe women should be segregated from men in public and that elections are un-Islamic.

“I’m not so optimistic about the result of the vote,” said Ziyed Tijiani, a 26-year-old architect who had just cast his vote. His forefinger was stained with the blue ink used in polling stations to stop ballot fraud.

“I think the Islamists could win. It’s not want I want. They may try to change the way I live,” he said, accompanied by a young woman dressed who was in jeans and T-shirt.

An Ennahda victory would be the first such success in the Arab world since Hamas won a 2006 Palestinian vote. Islamists won a 1991 election in Algeria, Tunisia’s neighbour. The army annulled the result, provoking years of conflict.

Ennahda’s fortunes could have a bearing on Egyptian elections set for next month in which the Muslim Brotherhood, an ideological ally, also hopes to emerge strongest.

Tunisia’s election will be watched too in neighbouring Libya, which plans to hold elections next year after a revolt there ousted Muammar Gaddafi….

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Filed Under: Sharia, Tunisia


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