A Tunisian Islamist party has emerged victorious in the Arab Spring's first elections, taking 41.47 percent of votes cast nine months after ousting dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, results show.
The Ennahda party obtained 90 seats in a new 217-member assembly that will rewrite the constitution, appoint a president and form a caretaker government, elections chief Kamel Jendoubi told journalists in Tunis.
The provisional results put two leftist parties in second and third place after Sunday's historic polls: the leftist Congress for the Republic (CPR) obtaining 13.82 percent of the vote, representing 30 seats, and Ettakatol 9.68 percent or 21 seats, he said.
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Ennahda, banned under Ben Ali's regime and registered as a political party in March, had preempted its victory by announcing Wednesday it had started coalition negotiations and intended to form a new government within a month.
The party, which presents itself as having a moderate Islamist agenda, has put forward its number two, Haamdi Jebali, as its candidate for prime minister.
The new assembly will decide on the country's system of government and how to guarantee basic liberties, including women's rights, which many in Tunisia fear Ennahda would seek to diminish despite its assurances to the contrary.
Analysts have said that Ennahda, even in a majority alliance, would be unable to "dictate" any programme to the assembly -- having no choice but to appease its coalition partners, a moderate-minded society, and the international community on whose investment and tourism the country relies heavily.
Leftist parties may yet seek to form a majority bloc against Ennahda, which said it met bankers and stock brokers earlier Thursday to "reassure" them.
Tunisian voters turned out en masse Sunday to elect the new assembly.
The electoral system was designed to include as many parties as possible in drafting the new constitution, expected to take a year, ahead of fresh national polls.
Coalition negotiations are expected to be complicated, with all of Ennahda's potential partners on the leftist, secular side of the political spectrum.
But Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi has said a government would be put together as soon as possible, "within no more than a month."
Jebali on Wednesday signalled his intention to form an executive with the highest scoring leftist parties, singling out the CPR and Ettakatol.
At the same time Ettakatol chief Mustapha Ben Jaafar said coalition talks have started "with all the political partners, including Ennahda, and will continue pending the final results."
POST-POLL UNREST
Violent protests broke out in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, the birthplace of the uprising that ousted Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, after election results were announced, witnesses and the government said.
More than 2,000 young people marched on the headquarters of the Islamist Ennahda party, the election victor, and pelted security forces with stones after they learned that another political grouping's candidates' lists were invalidated, said the witnesses and the interior ministry.
"A violent protest is under way, the security forces are trying to contain it," ministry spokesman Hichem Meddeb told AFP.
An AFP correspondent reported that the group broke doors and windows of the Ennahda building and set alight tyres on the town's main road.
A similar protest was under way in the town of Regueb, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Sidi Bouzid, said witnesses, where a gunshot was fired at the local Ennahda offices.
