Islamists to Name Tunisia’s PM

Following its resounding electoral victory this week, Tunisia’s Islamic-leaning Ennahda party is planning to propose a member for the post of the country’s prime minister.
“It is completely normal since the secretary-general of the winning party in all democracies is the one who takes the prime minister’s post,” said Ennahda secretary general Hamadi Jbeli.
Jbeli was quoted as saying by the official TAP news agency that the Islamic party will put him forward to be interim prime minister.
Jbeli is a former political prisoner under ousted president Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali, according to Reuters.
He spent over a decade in jail, along with thousands of other Ennahda supporters rounded up by the former authorities.
An engineer by training, he is the leading lieutenant of party leader Rachid Ghannouchi.
He said the party may offer the presidency, a largely ceremonial post, to Beji Caid Sebsi, a secularist technocrat who is now caretaker prime minister.
The move could reassure Ennahda opponents who worry it will be too dominant.
Tunisians voted massively on Sunday to elect a new assembly, their first elections since Ben Ali’s overthrow earlier this year.
Tunisian officials were still tabulating results from Sunday’s election, the first democratic vote in Tunisia’s history, but Ennahda party is on course to be declared the winner by a wide margin.
Ennahda, citing its own figures, says the election gave it 40 percent of the seats in the assembly which will draft a new constitution, appoint an interim government and set a date for new elections late next year or early in 2013.
Ennahda will be short of a majority in the new assembly, but is expected to form a coalition with two of the secularist runners-up.
The Islamist party will get the biggest say on important posts.
The outcome of the vote is expected to resonate in other countries, especially Egypt and Libya, which are wrestling with their own transition from repression to democracy.
No Islamists have obtained power in the Middle East since Hamas won a 2006 election in the Palestinian Territories, but the uprisings which reshaped the political landscape this year have created an opening for them.

Tourism

The Islamist party has also sought to reassure tourists about their future policies.
“The tourism sector is among the achievements which we cannot touch,” Jbeli was quoted as saying.
Tourism is a major source of revenue for Tunisia.
Ennahda, eyeing to reassure investors, has said it would not try to impose Islamic strictures on modesty of dress, alcohol and usury.
“Is it logical to handicap a strategic sector like tourism by forbidding wine or wearing bathing costumes?” Jbeili said.
“These are personal liberties for Tunisians and foreigners as well.”
Ennahda is led by Rachid Ghannouchi, forced into exile in Britain for 22 years because of harassment by Ben Ali’s police.
A softly spoken scholar, he dresses in suits and open-necked shirts while his wife and daughter wear the hijab.
Ghannouchi is at pains to stress his party will not enforce any code of morality on Tunisian society, or the millions of Western tourists who holiday on its beaches.
He models his approach on the moderate party of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.

Source: OnIslam & News Agencies