Islamists Win Plaudits as Tunisia Awaits Vote Results

Islamist party Ennahda, dominant in Tunisian politics since the 2011 revolution, has won praise for its grace in conceding defeat in landmark parliamentary elections, as the country awaited preliminary results Wednesday.

Just hours after polling stations closed Sunday, Ennahda acknowledged that it had been beaten into second place by secular rival Nidaa Tounes.

Ennahda, which steered the North African nation through the aftermath of the revolution, congratulated Nidaa Tounes for becoming the largest party in the first parliament to be elected since then.

The movement called on its supporters to celebrate "democracy," and hundreds of them rallied outside its Tunis headquarters despite the defeat.

"We consider Tunisia has triumphed and that Ennahda has triumphed by leading the country to this stage," said Abdelhamid Jelassi, national coordinator for the movement whose slogan was "consensus" throughout the campaign.

Independent analyst Selim Kharrat, said this has made Ennahda look like"a very sleek, very democratic party, which congratulates its opponent, which hands over power," also referring to January, when Ennahda gave way to a government of technocrats to defuse a political crisis.

Ennahda, which won Tunisia's first free elections three years ago after the toppling of longtime president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, had previously been accused of working to Islamicize society away from its traditional secularism.

Tunisia's economy has also been in the doldrums during its tenure, and two prominent figures were assassinated last year by suspected jihadists, triggering the political crisis that Ennahda resolved by handing over power.

Analyst Slaheddine Jourchi said the evolution can be traced back to the Egyptian army's ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 and the bloody repression that followed.

"What happened in Egypt shook them up" and led to an easing of strains with Nidaa Tounes, which includes representatives of the ousted Ben Ali regime whom Ennahda had initially wanted to ban from running for election, he said.

Analyst Kharrat said this showed Ennahda's "extraordinary pragmatism and capacity to adapt" to political developments.

With neither of the two top parties expected to win an outright majority, political horse-trading has begun ahead of the announcement of results.

Election organizers have until Thursday to announce the final outcome.

Projections suggest that Nidaa Tounes will win around 80 of the 217 seats in parliament, against around 70 for Ennahda.

Under Tunisia's electoral system, a party that gains the largest number of votes but falls short of an outright majority is given a mandate to form a coalition government.

Tunisian newspapers on Wednesday predicted a grand coalition.

"The best scenario would be a Nidaa Tounes-Ennahda coalition guaranteeing a stable government for the next five years," said the French-language daily La Presse.

Foreign observers have praised Tunisia's "free" election, in a vote that has raised hopes of a peaceful transition in the birthplace of the Arab Spring.

However, poverty and unemployment, which were key factors that sparked the anti-Ben Ali revolt, remain unresolved. The election was fought on the axis of the economy and security.