Sunday, October 23, 2011

Tunisians Vote...

...today.
"Yamina Guermazi, 45, wore a black headscarf in remembrance of her 18-month-old daughter, Yaquine, who was asphyxiated when Ben Ali’s security forces fired teargas into a hammam, a Turkish bath for women.

“I have been crying since this morning, but I am happy to be experiencing this historic moment. It remains a happy day after half a century of slavery,” she said.

Salem Bouazizi, brother of fruitseller Mohamed Bouazizi whose self-immolation sparked the Tunisian revolution, cast his first democratic vote in the southern town of Sfax at the age of 31."
[---]
"“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."
I cannot imagine....

More. A 70% turnout.

Here.
"Those who are not versed in Tunisian politics should go and stand in the square opposite the Municipality of Tunis and just absorb the architecture of political Tunisia. This square has no analogue elsewhere in the Arab world.

With the municipality to one's back, the Sadiki school - founded by reformer Khayr al-Din Pasha - symbolises not only Ottoman connections, but also a reformist agenda begun more than 150 years ago. To the right, stands the Aziza Othman hospital, named after a woman who cultivated the earliest forms of civic networks in Tunisia.

Just opposite the Kasbah, the seat of government and the lush manicured trees shading the squares joining the prime minister's office and the ministry of finance, the onlooker sees architectural syncretism at its best. Various shapes of domes and minarets - Tunisian and Ottoman - dot the skyline of Tunis, the country's hub of political power. Some of my pro-democratisation students from the University of Exeter and I brainstormed on how to understand this perennial quest for synthesis in Tunisia.

It is this synthesis which will triumph. The embrace of the Habib Bourguiba Avenue, a mini-Champs Elysees with its open-air cafes, a refuge for all, including the unemployed, and the Medina, the Old City, hints at how Tunisia will vote.

Tunisians champion syncretism, and this is really the crux of Tunisia's "political culture". They do not wish to ditch their Arab and Islamic heritage. Nor do they wish to detach from the brighter spots of reformist politics in their history. French and European inputs into the mix of their culture are now deep-rooted and appreciated."

and here.
"Tunisians turned out in force to vote in the country's first free election, 10 months after vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in an act of protest that started the Arab Spring uprisings.

In some areas where polling booths had shut, people were still waiting to vote. Election officers in the conservative district of Ettadamen in Tunis said some 300 people still queueing would be allowed to cast votes.

"Everyone who is inside will be allowed vote, even if it takes us to midnight," an officer said.

The leader of an Islamist party predicted to win the biggest share of the vote was heckled outside a polling station by people shouting "terrorist," highlighting tensions between Islamists and secularists being felt across the Arab world.

Bouazizi's dramatic suicide, prompted by despair over poverty and government repression, provoked mass protests which forced President Zine al-Abidine to flee Tunisia. This in turn inspired uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain."
They should be just about done by now. It's twenty minutes after eight.

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