Tunisian Capital made history when a woman from Tunisia’s moderate Islamic party was elected as mayor of the capital city, Tunis on Tuesday as the first time a woman holds the post, a move seen as an inspiring development for women across the country.
Defeating rival, Kamel Idir, from the Nida Tounes party, Souad Abderrahim, manager of a pharmaceutical firm and a militant women’s rights activist get the positing.
She is the only female winner of half a dozen other female Ennahda candidates who ran in the mayoral elections in, and around the Tunis region.
Abderrahim, a former lawmaker and militant for women’s rights, doesn’t wear a veil. She was the only winner so far among a half-dozen women from the Ennahdha party who competed for mayoral posts in the region around Tunis.
The mayor said in an interview with The Associated Press during campaigning that cleaning up the capital and planting trees would be her first priority.
“I dedicate this victory to all Tunisian women,” Abderrahim said after her win, according to a report “My first task will be to improve the face of Tunis”.
Abderrahim was elected to the Constituent Assembly of Tunisia in 2011 after the Arab Spring movement. She served on the Assembly until 2014 after which she served on the Ennahda party’s policy-making committee.
“Abderrahim’s victory is one for the cause of women. It’s empowering in the sense that women can aspire now to be mayors and have leadership positions regardless of their political affiliation or where they came from,” said Oumayma Ben Abdullah, a 27-year-old Tunisian and fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.
> Shatabdi Sarker Poushi
The Tunisian Capital has Elected its First Female Mayor
