Former Bulgarian President Zhelev: Free Elections in Tunisia Were Groundbreaking

First democratically elected Bulgarian President Zhelyu Zhelev was appointed as the country's special representative in Tunisia. Photo by Sofia Photo Agency

The first free and fair elections in Tunisia last Sunday set a great start for democracy in the country, said former Bulgarian President Zhelyu Zhelev, who was an observer there.

"At some polling stations I saw people crying from joy at the fact that for the first time in their lives they were allowed to freely vote," said Zhelev for the Bulgarian National Radio Saturday.

In the 1970s and 80s Zhelev was part of a dissident movement against Bulgaria's communist regime, later heading the opposition main political force, the rightist Union of Democratic Forces, until becoming the first democratically elected president in Bulgaria in 1992.

According to Zhelev, alleged manipulations of the Tunisian vote, which provoked fresh protests over the week, were not as large as to mandate a cancellation of the vote, which he characterized as successful, free and fair.

"People also need not to worry that the Islamist party Ennahda won the elections - back in Bulgaria in the early 1990s the first general elections were won by the Communists, but Bulgaria nevertheless continued on the road to democracy," said the former Bulgarian president.

The moderately Islamist Ennahda has already stated it is launching wide consultations with its rivals to reach a broad agreement on the future Tunisian Constitution that the great assembly voted for by Tunisians has to draft and adopt.

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