Having launched what became known as the Arab spring, Tunisia has now led the region by holding a clean election with an enthusiastic turnout and highly encouraging results. The three parties that have come out on top in the most democratic of north African states have no links with the capital city's upper middle class or those sections of the business community that benefited from the ousted Ben Ali dictatorship. They both have a tradition of struggling for democratic values.
As in post-Mubarak Egypt, there was reason to fear that the old regime would re-emerge in Tunisia with new faces, but this now seems unlikely. The party that has emerged from the poll most strongly is An-Nahda (Renaissance), which suffered massive repression under Ben Ali and has won great respect for its sacrifices. This party of modern democratic Islam campaigned hard on the two issues that concern most Tunisians: corruption and unemployment, particularly youth unemployment.
While several smaller secular parties tried to manipulate Islamophobia – a relatively easy card to play given the official state-controlled media's demonisation of the Islamists over several decades – their efforts have failed. Voters had their first chance to listen to An-Nahda's candidates and they were not put off by what they heard. An-Nahda made special efforts to show that it wanted an inclusive government of national unity and would respect all points of view. It also reached out to voters in the more impoverished interior, making it clear it would not be just a party of the Mediterranean coast as Ben Ali's regime had been.
The main runners-up, The Congress for the Republic and Ettakatol, the Democratic Forum for Labour and Liberties, both have a strong and principled record in the struggle against corruption and dictatorship. Ettakatol has a distinguished background in the trade union movement, which, again as in Egypt, was one of the main pillars of the struggle to oust Ben Ali.
While Egypt is inevitably linked with Tunisia in the world's headlines as the only other Arab country to have achieved regime change this year by nonviolent means, Turkey may provide a better paradigm for Tunisia's future political development. Under Kemal Atatürk, Turkey went through forced secularisation and modernisation just as Tunisia did under its first president, Habib Bourguiba. Women were obliged to remove the veil in schools, universities and public jobs, and were also allowed to run for parliament. Abortion was made legal and polygamy banned. Marriage required the bride's consent.
But there was a severe downside to the regime in Turkey: a highly political army that enriched itself, mounted coups and imprisoned hundreds of opponents. In Tunisia similar repression occurred under the guise of curbing the Islamists.
Now, a new generation in Tunisia is keen to turn its back on such practices just as a similar generation did in Turkey a decade ago when the Justice and Development party, the moderate Islamists, were elected to power. North Africa has moved on from the time when the army in Algeria foolishly blocked an election victory by moderate Islamists in 1991, plunging the country into civil war and creating opportunities for supporters of a more extreme form of Islamism to take up guns. Tunisia always was an altogether more civil society and will not repeat such folly now that Islamists have won its first free election.
One issue is whether the secular fundamentalism that banned the hijab will give way. An-Nahda would find it easier to restore women's right to wear what they please in government buildings than it has been in Turkey, where the hijab ban is enshrined in the constitution and continues in force. In Tunisia, the ban was enacted by legislation, and a new parliament could change the law. As
Rachid Ghannouchi, An-Nahda's founder, said during the campaign: "We are against the imposition of the headscarf in the name of Islam and we are against the banning of the headscarf in the name of secularism or modernity."
But dress code is not Tunisia's top priority. The country's big challenge is to draw up a constitution which safeguards the political freedoms that those who rose up against Ben Ali in January demanded. The assembly elected on Sunday is tasked to do that. It will also appoint a government that will have to start tackling unemployment. Europe's financial crisis will not make that easy. Tourism has collapsed and may not quickly revive even though the country has shown itself to be safe for foreign visitors.
So after the elections, Tunisia's road ahead remains tough. At least, the omens are clearer than in Egypt or its neighbour, Libya.
Jonathan Steele is a former Guardian foreign correspondent
