THE Arab Spring began in Tunisia so it is appropriate that the first free elections to take place following those uprisings should take place in Tunisia, on Sunday. It is ten months since Mohammad Bouazizi, a young street vendor in the nondescript town of Sidi Bouzi, set himself alight in protest at the way he had been treated by the local police.
The national uprising which followed forced the departure of the unpopular and corrupt president Ben Ali and left a vacuum which will begin to be filled by Sunday's election for a constituent assembly.
It was widely said that Tunisia's revolution broke the mould of Arabic politics and in the same sense there is a hope that Tunisia's election will provide a model for those that still remain to be held in Egypt and, more distantly, in Yemen and Syria. After 50 years of single party rule Sunday's election will have a wide array of parties, perhaps as many as 80 and also hundreds of independent candidates. The general expectation is that the moderate Islamist party An-Nahda (Renaissance) will lead the field but the elections are being conducted on a proportional-representation system so coalition building to form a government will probably be necessary.
An-Nahda's main opponent is the left-wing secular Progressive Democratic Party. Again, Tunisia has the task of pointing the way forward.
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