TUNIS – Following the resounding electoral victory of Tunisia's Islamists, religious minorities are putting their faith in the country's nascent democracy.
"The Tunisian people, including the Jews, have understood that democracy is the best solution for everybody," Khelifa Attoun, a Tunis businessman who is vice-president of the local Jewish community, told Reuters.
Islamic-leaning Ennahda party won most votes in last month's election, the first since the ouster of president Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali in a popular revolt earlier this year.
The election will result in an assembly, which will write the country's new constitution.
"The democratic spirit is there," said the Jordanian-born Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tunis, Maroun Lahham.
"This is not Iran, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia - it's not Switzerland or Sweden either," he said.
"This will be a real Arab democracy, with a Muslim coloring."
Their cautious optimism echoed comments by Muslim analysts who expect Ennahda to substantiate its claim that Islam and democracy are compatible.
"Ennahda is not going to throw away this opportunity that history has given it," said Sofiane Ben Farhat, a senior editor at the daily La Presse de Tunisie.
Tunisia's religious minorities are tiny.
There are only about 30,000 Christians, almost all foreigners of European and sub-Saharan African origin, and fewer than 2,000 Jews in a community that dates back to the Roman Empire.
Reassuring
Religious minorities say that they have no problem with an Islamist-led leadership in Tunisia.
"Ennahda will have to follow the moderate Tunisian tradition," Attoun said.
"Jews have no problem with Ennahda, only with the salafists. But Ennahda won't let them do what they want."
Led by Rachid Ghannouchi, Ennahda says it will not write religion into the country's laws and will focus instead on jobs for the unemployed and justice for all.
"Everybody is watching Ennahda and knows what they have promised," Lahham said.
"If they want to change anything, the street is there to protest."
During the campaign for the October 23 election for Tunisia's new democratic assembly, moderate Islamists in the Ennahda party promised to maintain the country's secular state and respect human rights, women's rights and other freedoms.
Among the 10,000 candidates was one Jew, kosher restaurant owner Gilles Jacob Lellouche from the Tunis port area of La Goulette, where many Jews live.
"I wanted to break the taboo that someone from a minority can't get involved in politics," said Lellouche, who was not elected.
"People saw me as a citizen who was getting involved. It all went very well."
The Ennahda candidate in La Goulette visited the Jewish nursing home to reassure the residents and party leader Ghannouchi met the Tunis community's leader.
"Ennahda has gone out of its way to reassure the Jewish community," said a senior Western diplomat in touch with Jewish communities around the country.
"It's in Ennahda's interest both as a political party and as the leader of the next government of Tunisia to show that this tradition of tolerance continues
