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A secular Tunisian party garnered the biggest share of parliamentary seats in Sunday’s election, the North African country’s election commission announced early Thursday.
The official results bore out exit polls and preliminary tallies that had come out earlier this week. The Islamist party that came in second, Ennhada, had already conceded defeat.
According to the official count, the secular Nida Tounes party won 85 of the 217 parliamentary seats, while Ennhada took 69. The results are subject to challenge in case of voting irregularities, but final certification – which will take some days – was not expected to substantially alter the result.
Election observers had hailed the vote as largely free, fair and peaceful.
Tunisia, which rose up more than three years ago against a longtime dictator, has had what is generally viewed as the most successful democratic transition to date in the wake of the “Arab Spring” uprisings across the region. However, it continues to grapple with a high rate of joblessness and a simmering Islamist insurgency.
The victory of Nida Tounes, or Tunis Calls, was read as a repudiation of Islamist rule. Ennahda had won the previous parliamentary vote, but the governing coalition it led went in disarray last year.
Nida Tounes will now begin efforts to form a government, for which it will need to enlist coalition partners. Smaller parties trailed the two main rivals, splitting the remaining parliamentary seats among themselves.
Ryan is a special correspondent. Staff writer Laura King in Cairo contributed to this report.
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