TUNIS: Tunisia holds its first-ever free elections Sunday, nine months after the surprise toppling of strongman Zine el Abidine Ben Ali that sparked the Arab Spring.
From 7:00 am (0600 GMT), some 7.2 million eligible voters, many of them undecided to the end, can elect a 217-member assembly that will write a new constitution after decades of autocratic government.
Tunisia's interim president Foued Mebazaa said he would step down after the election.
"I will recognise the results whoever wins and whatever the colour of the majority (in the future assembly)", Mebazaa told the Arabic language Assabah appearing Sunday.
"I shall hand over power to whoever is chosen by the constituent assembly as the new president of the republic," he said.
Unlike its neighbour, which descended into civil war, Tunisia's path to democracy has been mostly peaceful apart from some protests against the pace of transformation and sporadic violent outbursts by conservative Islamists against secularisation.
Elections chief Kamel Jendoubi on Saturday declared his ISIE polling commission "ready and confident", while the European Union observer mission said there was "almost no chance of cheating or falsifying results".
Vote counting will start as soon as polling stations close at 7:00 pm, with results updated live throughout the night. The final tally will be released on Monday.
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