TUNIS, Tunisia — Banned for decades, Tunisia’s moderate Islamist party Ennahda emerged the official victor in the nation’s first free elections, taking 90 of 217 seats in an assembly that will write a new constitution, the electoral commission announced Thursday.
Second with 30 seats in Sunday’s landmark vote was the Congress for the Republic party, founded in 2001 by noted human-rights activist Moncef Marzouki, a doctor who had lived in exile in Paris.
The third-place party in the landmark voting was the center-left Ettakatol, or the Democratic Forum for Labor and Freedoms, led by Mustapha Ben Jaafar, also a doctor. It won 21 seats in the constituent assembly.
Ennahda’s leading role in fashioning a new Tunisia was evident shortly after the vote. However, electoral authorities had said they were slow in announcing full results because they were taking care with counting and verifying.
The assembly will form a government to replace interim authorities who have been in charge of this small North African nation since protests forced President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee in January. He took refuge in Saudi Arabia.
The Tunisian protests inspired similar movements in other Arab countries, including successful revolutions in Egypt and Libya, now known as the Arab Spring.
Electoral authorities invalidated six lists of the party placing fourth in the voting with 19 assembly seats, Aridha-Chabia, or Popular Petition, saying there were violations, mainly concerning financing.
International observers have praised Tunisia for an exemplary election.
The path ahead remains fraught with difficulties.
Ennahda officials have promised a broad-based coalition and vowed to wary Tunisians that democratic principles as well as sex equality will be respected in line with Muslim Tunisia’s strong secular tradition.
SYRIA
Tens of thousands of Syrians held a mass rally Thursday in support of President Bashar Assad, and the regime’s crackdown on dissent continued in opposition areas as security forces killed at least nine people, including two youths, activists said.
The demonstration in the coastal city of Latakia came one day after a similar pro-regime rally in the capital, Damascus, as authorities try to galvanize supporters in the face of a seven-month uprising against Assad.
The United Nations estimates that the government crackdown on protests has killed 3,000 people.
On Thursday, a 14-year-old boy in the southern village of Dael was among at least four people killed by Syrian forces during security raids, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees, another activist group.
A video posted online by activists showed blood pouring from the teenager’s head, soaking his blue T-shirt, as another boy screamed in the background.
The video could not be independently verified. Syria has banned most foreign journalists and prevented independent reporting, making witness accounts and activist groups crucial sources of information about the uprising.
The activists said five civilians, including a 12-year-old, were killed later Thursday in the village of Karnaz in central Syria, during heavy clashes between the army and gunmen, believed to be soldiers who defected.
International sanctions are chipping away at the regime’s strength.
On Thursday, Syrian Oil Minister Sufian Allaw acknowledged Damascus was having difficulty selling its oil after the European Union banned oil imports from Syria.
YEMEN
Security forces in Yemen have killed five militants in towns seized by radical Islamists in the country’s rebellious south, a Yemeni official said Thursday.
The official said an airstrike by Yemeni forces killed two in the town of Shaqra on Yemen’s south coast. Three others were killed in nearby Zinjibar in clashes with security forces.
Security has collapsed across the Arab world’s poorest country during the eightmonth popular uprising seeking to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Islamist militants linked to al-Qaida have seized entire towns in the country’s south, while deadly clashes regularly break out in the capital, Sana, and other cities between Saleh’s forces and defectors from his military.
Information for this article was contributed by Bassem Mroue, Albert Aji and Gamal Abdul-Fattah of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 8 on 10/28/2011