EJU.org > News > World > Tunisians vote proudly, happily, in peace

Tunisians vote proudly, happily, in peace

Tunisians emerged smiling from polling stations Sunday to proudly display the blue tips of their left index fingers dipped in indelible ink after casting their ballots in an historic post-revolution poll.

24 October 2011 - Last updated 07:56AM
A FONT SIZE A
  • SHARE
PRINT

Photo: Tunisia's sole Jewish election candidate Gilles Jacob Lellouche

At La Goulette, the capital's historic port suburb, Tunisia's sole Jewish election candidate Gilles Jacob Lellouche felt emotional as he cast his vote early.   

"For the first time, I can take charge of my life," he said.    
 
Queues kept getting longer as the day grew later -- stretching to two kilometres (over a mile) in some places.   
 
"It is a secret," Monia Jouini, 51, said confidently after casting her ballot in Ettadhamen, a poor suburb in the west of capital, in the first-ever Tunisian elections whose results are not predetermined.   
 
In Mutuelleville, a chic suburb of Tunis, a young man arrived with the Tunisian flag draped around his shoulders like the cape of a cartoon hero.   
 
"This is my first-ever vote," Salma Cherif, a 48-year-old doctor, told AFP on exiting the polling booth.   
 
"Before, I never made an effort to vote, it was a charade."   
 
At Ettadhamen, men and women formed separate queues for the vote which the Islamist Ennahda party is poised to win. A rainbow of headscarves contrasted brightly with the line of more soberly dressed men.   
 
Soldiers and police were ubiquitous, though keeping discreetly in the background.    
 
"I am very happy, I feel good," Ahmed Radali said with a broad smile after voting, wagging his blue-tipped finger.   
 
"No, I won't tell you who I voted for. Today, there is nobody to point a gun at your temple, to throttle you or to hit you in the ribs," he said of the voter intimidation practices widely ascribed to Ben Ali's regime.   
 
People queued patiently with yellow-badged election observers at hand.   
 
Inside the polling station, a man stared apparently baffled by the massive A3-sized ballot paper before disappearing for several minutes into a booth emblazoned with the logo of the ISIE independent poll body -- another Tunisian 
first.
 
The voter, who said he had decided only at the last minute who would get his vote, finally re-emerged with the paper folded in four, and dropped it into a transparent ballot box already nearly full by mid-morning.   
 
In the courtyard of the school that served as a polling station here, older people patiently awaited their turn seated at pupils' desks.   
 
"I have in the past voted for Ben Ali, but this is different. It is a beautiful day for Tunisia," 60-year-old Arbaya said with a toothless smile, her wrinkled face framed by a black scarf. "I am very happy."   
 
Couple Hassen and Latifa arrived arm in arm, and said they would make their crosses next to Ennahda.   
 
"It is a well-considered decision, I like their (political) programme," said Hassen. "It is the first time that we practice democracy in Tunisia, we have to do it well."
 
Source: EJP
TAGS

Tunisia Jews Elections