Al-Nahda claims victory in Tunisia poll
The moderate Islamist party al-Nahda has claimed that it has won more than 40 per cent of seats in Tunisia's 217-member consitutent assembly, following the country's historic election.
"The first confirmed results show that al-Nahda has obtained first place nationally and in most districts," Abelhamid Jlassi, the party's campaign manager, said at a news conference citing its own election monitors' reports.
The party's claim that it won 90 seats came ahead of an announcement by ISIE, the country's independent election commission, of the provisional results for overseas seats.
The leaders of two leftist parties, the Congress Party for the Republic (CPR) and Ettakol, said they were fighting for second place, while the leader of the centre-left Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) conceded defeat on Monday evening.
"Al-Nahda is certainly the majority, but there are two other democratic entities, Ettakatol and the CPR, who were weak at the start but now find themselves in the position to contribute to political life and usher a rational modernity in this Arab-Muslim country," Khalil Zaouia, Ettakatol's number two, said.
Late on Monday, the Reuters news agency, citing senior al-Nahda official Ali Larayd, reported that al-Nahda was considering forming a coalition with both Ettakol and the CPR.
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