"They don't know anything about Tunisia and that's a huge problem," croaks the former number two of the party, Abdelefattah Monou, who put it on the track away from the politics of purity that ripped apart neighbouring Algeria. "They have been in jail or in exile. The movement is composed of different strands. The moderate pro-Turkish strand is dominant but there is a strong band of extremists that want to impose sharia law. None of them have any experience at all. They are totally disconnected from society." 

Tunisian analysts estimate the party will score around 25 to 35 per cent of the vote and will be by far the largest group in the coming constitutional convention. The danger posed by Islamist parties is usually their Bolshevik organisation. In Tunisia, the very incoherence of the Islamists is the worry, as it is so unclear what they will become or who will rise to the top in elections and appear in a government. The immense gulf between the developed coastal cities facing Europe and the hinterland, firmly part of an Arab-Berber Maghreb, means the intellectuals in the Tunis cafés, stripped of any knowledge of this illicit topic by the dictatorship, have no idea how the Islamists or any other front will fare beyond the capital.  

The under-25s account for 55 per cent of Tunisia's population and don't care about the Islamists. They are enjoying what they have won. Loud music beats on the back streets, crowds wear Converse trainers, colourful clothes and afros. This is "24 Hours for the Revolution", a free-speechathon, a "what I lived through during the revolution," freedom songs, too much coffee and a 2am debate about the United Nations — but the Arab '68 is strangely unpolitical. Nobody wants to talk about the parties. "Sous le kasbah, la plage," a dancer with green come-hither eyes smirks.  The mood turns nasty as a Tunisian UN employee tries to talk about Libya. Insults — "you're a Western spy." 

The wave is about freedom, but that does not make it accepting of Western interests in the region. Wajde is a bumbling, rotund young reporter. He encapsulates this contradiction and is in love with Al Jazeera. "It is wonderful, amazing. Now we can finally say what we want, there is no more ‘zero-copy' I have to send of the paper to the ministry, there is no more censorship." He beams like a friend. We are in a dirty, fluid-smelling, kebab shop. "But I really think the Arabs' revolution is the first step, in sweeping away these family governments, these corrupt governments, towards the final liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem through Arab democratic strength." The kebab is finished. He scrunches up the grease-paper, deadly serious.