Islam Online
Ayman Nawash
Washington D.C.

Ben Ali and his wife Leila cast their ballot during the recent elections.

In Tunisia, citizens elected Zine El Abidine Ben Ali by an overwhelmingly large margin to a third term as president. It was Tunisia's first "multiparty" presidential election.
Officials from the Interior Ministry said that Ben Ali won more than 99 percent of the vote. Voter turnout was about 90 percent, which was one of the highest in the nation's recent history. The official count of the election results are to be released later in the day.
Out of 9.4 million voters, less than half of them were eligible. Tunisians voters were given the choice between Ben Ali, 63, and two moderate opposition candidates, head of the leftist Popular Unity Party; Behlag Amor, 62, and head of the Unionist Democratic Union, an Arab nationalist party, Abderrahmane Tlili, 56.
The two opponents of Ben Ali had admitted before hand that they didn't stand much of a chance of winning. Like Elizabeth Dole, Ben Ali's opponents said only the president had sufficient funds to run a campaign and was the essential reason that doomed their fate. The Democratic Constitutional Rally party is the one that rules and is the only political party of consequence in Tunisia.
"Pot of dirt against the pot of iron." Amor called it after admitting that he ran in the election just to help break the single-candidate mold Tunisia had known since gaining independence from France in 1956. In 1987, it was the regime under the leadership of Ben Ali that came to power in a bloodless palace coup, going over "President-for-Life", Habib Bourguiba, the nation's founder. In the 1989 Tunisian elections, Ben Ali won more than 99 percent of the vote as the single candidate and replicated the same results in the1994 elections. This year, he was running for his final five-year term.
However, many political critics on the international level feel that Tunisian government officials maintain an iron grip on this tiny Westward-looking Muslim nation on the Mediterranean. Human rights groups criticize Tunisia for abuses ranging from the jailing and torture of political opponents to even limiting the press.
Voters were also given the chance to cast ballots for the 182-seat parliament. The parliament has been a ruling-party-controlled institution, with the opposition holding only 19 seats, but a new electoral law should give the opposition at least 34 seats this time.
Al Jumhuriyah at Tunisiyah became independent from France in 1956. Tunis is predominantly a Muslim society, about 98% of people are Arab Muslims, and the rest two percent are Christians, Jews and others. Arabic is the national language, but French is still the language of trade and commerce. Literacy is very average in the country and most people read and write around the age of 15. The literacy rate is 67 % which is higher than most of the other Arab nations.
Constitutional Democratic Rally party or RCD is the ruling party. Five other political parties are legal among which there is one communist party. The Islamic party, Al Nahda is however outlawed.