It's finally arrived: "TuniVote is online," one could read on Silmi Khanfir's Facebook account on Thursday. After months of hectic work, the Tunisian-German has launched www.tunivote.net, a Tunisian version of the German "Wahl-O-Mat" or "election machine" website that is to help Tunisians come to grips with the nascent democracy's already multifarious political landscape.

The free service is designed to help voters get acquainted with the more than 100 parties participating in the first free elections since the autocratic ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was deposed early this year.

German Wahl-O-Mat as model

The elections are set for October 23 and aim to create a national constitutional assembly. The only problem is that voters are unfamiliar with the majority of parties taking part.

This is why Khanfir, a sales manager at IBM in Stuttgart, has created TuniVote, a project he put together with the help of his friends. The service, which gages the overall compatibility of voters and parties, is not meant to tell voters which party to vote for, said Khanfir.

"We saw the impact of the Wahl-O-Mat and the advantages it had in Germany, and we just thought: 'Why not use it here too? Almost half of our country is online, and we have a relatively young population, so we have good reason to believe this will be a successful tool."

After deciding to act on his idea, Khanfir spoke with the people who developed the Wahl-O-Mat for the 2002 federal election. He also met with the Dutch institution that came up with the original idea, which dates back to 1985.

The new tool for Tunisia is different from those two models and is designed specifically for Tunisian voters. It enables them to determine which of the country's parties corresponds most closely to their political views.

Adapted for Tunisians

Khanfir and his team put together a set of 56 questions that cover topics central to Tunisia's political parties. After these questions have been answered, TuniVote produces a list of parties most compatible with each user's own opinions. Even parties that haven't registered with TuniVote are included in the results.

In comparison to the German Wahl-O-Mat there are important differences, emphasizes Khanfir. For starters, the program uses new software that was designed specifically for the Tunisian mindset.

"I think the Tunisian people need this tool. They certainly don't have time to read through the campaign material of over 100 parties. The average Tunisian is not as patient as your average German; we want results as fast as possible," he said.

A link to home

Khanfir was not alone in his development of TuniVote. The election tool is a shared project put together by a group of Tunisians living abroad, most of whom are based in Germany.

They founded for their purposes a network called "TuniComp" (www.tunicomp.net) and make use of various social networking websites to stay connected. The group includes programmers, engineers, economists and other volunteers of Tunisian descent.

One of them is Oualid Hamdi, product manager at the German communications giant Deutsche Telekom. The 29-year-old told Deutsche Welle that he wants to be active in the democratization of his native country.

"There is a great sense of confusion among Tunisian voters. This is why we want to help provide a kind of political clarity," he said.

TuniVote, according to Hamdi, is by no means an elite project designed by a group of expatriate Tunisians; the interests of voters were the driving force from the start, he stressed.

"We based our questions on the topics that matter for Tunisian voters, and we gathered these from listening to our own families, friends and acquaintances who are currently in the country."

Hamdi said people from all socioeconomic backgrounds were surveyed and that the advice of political experts - both in Germany and Tunisia - was incorporated.

Author: Chamselassil Ayari / glb
Editor: Martin Kuebler