Tunisia Hamadi Jebeli - Caliphate statement dashed hopes for secular democracy and raised fears of Islamisation

Tunisia which sparked the Arab Spring domino has raised concern. It is common sense that in a power vacuum, two things can happen, either chaos or a well organised group, such as powerful religious setup will take over, or both if no consensus for national reconciliation can be arrived at.

With Tunisia and many Arab countries where dictatorships or authoritarianian governments fall, the absence of strong personality, institutions and worldly wise educated middle class make them extremely vulnerable.

Was this the democracy that Tunisians protestors and external supporters had envisaged?

The moderate Islamic party is not what is claimed and believed to be.

Tunisia's Islamists elects hails arrival of sixth Caliphate

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The Islamist politician likely to become Tunisia's first democratically elected prime minister has alarmed liberals and secularists by claiming the arrival of the "sixth caliphate", a controversial term for a Muslim empire.

Hamadi Jebeli, secretary-general of Ennahda, the moderate Islamist party which romped to victory in last month's elections, told a rally in the city of Sousse: "My brothers, you are at a historic moment in a new cycle of civilisation, God willing. We are in sixth caliphate, God willing."

Party officials, who have spent months insisting they wanted to pursue secular democratic politics rather than an international Islamist agenda, were forced on the defensive after his comments were posted on the internet.

But they may have scuppered the party's hopes of forging a broad-based coalition. The left-of-centre secular Ettakatol, which came third in the vote, suspended talks with Ennahda over forming a government.

"We thought we were going to build a second republic with our partner – not a sixth caliphate," Khemais Ksila, a senior member, said.

Ennahda's other prospective coalition partner, the likewise centre-left and secular Congress for the Republic, did not follow Ettakatol's lead, perhaps soothed by a deal making its leader Moncef Marzouki interim president.

The term "caliphate" refers to a governance system based on sharia law as formerly used by successive Islamic empires. It is a sensitive term in Arab politics due to its modern associations with extremist groups like al-Qaeda and especially in Tunisia where it is promoted by the radical Salafi movement, Hizb-ut-Tahrir.

Mr Jebeli's opponents are now planning a large demonstration to coincide with the opening of the new assembly.