Partial official results from Tunisia suggest victory for the moderate Islamist party, Ennahda, in the first democratic elections prompted by the Arab Spring uprisings. Ennahda has already claimed victory, although initial results indicate the party is short of a majority. Its main rival, the secular centre-left PDP party, has admitted defeat in the poll praised by election observers. Tunisia's ex-President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali was overthrown in January. He had been in power for 23 years. Tunisia's electoral commission said Ennahda had won 18 out of 44 seats declared so far in a new assembly of 217 seats - which is tasked with writing a new constitution. Ennahda's leaders have pledged to create a multi-party secular democracy, and not an Islamist state. A spokeswoman for the party, Yusra Ghannouchi, said: "Tunisians have voted in fact for those parties that have been consistently part of the struggle for democracy and opposed to Ben Ali's dictatorship. At the forefront of those parties is Ennahda party." In initial results declared on Monday, Ennahda took half the 18 seats reserved for Tunisians living abroad - a distribution that they expected to be replicated domestically. The party is expected to lead a coalition government.