Tunisia’s moderate Islamist Ennahda party appears to be the clear victor of Sunday’s election, winning about a 40 percent plurality of the vote. In the first democratic election in the nation that ignited the Arab Spring, 90 percent of Tunisians took to the polls to vote on a r a 217 member assembly that will draft a new constitution and appoint a new caretaker government. An Islamist victory in secular Tunisia could point to a trend in the region. Islamists are poised to make electoral gains in Egypt, and have been dominate in post-Gadhafi Libya. But what kind of future are the Tunisian people voting for? Was this truly the fruits of the Arab Spring; or the beginning of an Islamist revolution? Gordon Gray, U.S. ambassador to Tunisia, gives his analysis from Tunis.
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