Tunis Live Blog

2 weeks 2 days ago - Tunisia Election

Violent protests broke out in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, the birthplace of the uprising that ousted Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, after election results were announced Thursday, witnesses and the government said.

More than 2,000 young people marched on the headquarters of the Islamist Ennahdha party, the election victor, and pelted security forces with stones after they learned that another political grouping's candidates' lists were invalidated, said the witnesses and the interior ministry. [AFP]

Tags Sidi Bouzid, tunis

2 weeks 4 days ago - Tunisia

Hundreds gathered outside al-Nahda's headquarters in Mountplaisir, a suburb of Tunis, ahead of an expected appearance by the movement's leader, Rachid Ghannouchi [Video by Yasmine Ryan]

Tags al nahda, Rachid Ghannouchi, tunis, Tunisia election

2 weeks 4 days ago - Tunisia

People are gathered outside al-Nahda's headquarters in Tunis' Montplaisir suburb, celebrating. As opposed to the flames seen in December and January, when citizens took to the streets to force President Ben Ali from office, these flames appear to be of joy, rather than anger. [Al Jazeera/Yasmine Ryan]

Tags al nahda, celebration, tunis, Tunisia election

2 weeks 4 days ago - Tunisia

The Reuters news agency reports that about 400 people were at the protest outside the ISIE, alleging that al-Nahda and other groups had committed fraud during Sunday's vote.

They carried banners which read: "What democracy?" and "Shame on you Ghannouchi!", a reference to al-Nahda's leader Rachid Ghannouchi.

"There has been falsification even before the vote. There are parties like al-Nahda which gave money to voters," said Saifallah Hanachi, one of the demonstrators.

"We are not against Islam, but Ghannouchi's party should be punished for these violations of the election law," Amira Ben Yahia, another demonstrator, said.

Tags protest, tunis, Tunisia election

2 weeks 5 days ago - Tunisia

This video, shot by Ali Garboussi, shows the moment al-Nahda made its announcement of victory.

Tags al nahda, tunis, Tunisia election

2 weeks 5 days ago - Tunisia

Here's Al Jazeera's Nazanine Moshiri, from outside the al-Nahda headquarters in Tunis.

Tags al nahda, tunis, Tunisia election

2 weeks 5 days ago - Tunisia

A delegation from the National Democratic Institute, a US-based organisation that sent a delegation to help monitor Sunday's vote, reported their preliminary results on Monday. Al Jazeera's Yasmine Ryan was there.

Jane Harman, president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center and former US congresswoman from California who was a member of the delegation, said:

"This election to me was hands down, the best, the most promising I’ve ever seen, including in the United States."

"We saw people prepared to stand in line for three or four hours to vote for the first time in their life," she said.

"Possibly about 30 per cent of the seats will go to women, larger than the number of women in the US Senate, and more than anywhere else in the Arab world."

Jorge Fernando Quiroga, former president of Bolivia said that the high turnout was incredible in a country with no history of democracy, and praised the Tunisian electoral authority (the ISIE) for creating the rules, new voting lists and organising the election in just nine months.

"Tunisia's historic election could become the catalyst for democracy in the Arab world," Quiroga said. "Democracy has no nationally … freedom knows no borders."

While the institute's findings were overwhelmingly positive, they did note several shortcomings.

Leslie Campbell, NDI regional director for Middle East and North Africa programs, noted that an SMS system set up by the ISIE so that people could send texts to find out where they should vote crashed early in the day, before being restored.

Another issue was the long waiting times, but he added that most voters did not seem deterred by this.

"There were reports of voters waiting patiently for five hours or more," Campbell said.

Tags Elections Observers, tunis, Tunisia election, Woodrow Wilson Centre

2 weeks 5 days ago - Tunisia

"We would like to reassure our trade and economic partners, and all actors and investors, we hope very soon to have stability and the right conditions for investment in Tunisia," al-Nahda campaign chief Abdelhamid Jlassi says.

Tags al nahda, tunis, Tunisia election

2 weeks 5 days ago - Tunisia

Al Jazeera's Yasmine Ryan will be reporting live from the independent electoral commission (ISIE) press conference at 6:00pm local time (17:00 GMT). You can follow her on Twitter here.

Tags ISIE, tunis, Tunisia election

2 weeks 5 days ago - Tunisia

There's a press conference set to take place outside the al-Nahda headquarters in Tunis, but it's unclear who's going to be speaking.

nazaninemoshiri#Ennahdha about to give press conference outside it's headquarters. We are not sure if it is #ghannouchi http://t.co/Wqr9UvcyMon Oct 24 15:53:31

Tags al nahda, Rachid Ghannouchi, tunis, Tunisia election