Tunisian election officials say they will announce on Wednesday the time for their final proclamation of election results from Sunday's polling.

An election official says the timing of the proclamation will largely depend on the progress of voting-counting in the remaining precincts, especially in the Tunis area. The TAP state news agency says the official commented in a news conference late Tuesday.

Preliminary results indicate the moderate Islamist Ennahdha party captured the most seats in a 217-member assembly.

The party has already begun talks on forming an interim unity government with a pair of liberal rivals. Ennahdha is in coalition talks with the Congress for the Republic and the Democratic Forum for Labor and Liberties, two center-left parties.

Party leaders have hailed the budding Islamist-liberal alliance as a new, inclusive model for countries emerging from the chaos of the Arab Spring.

During the campaign, Ennahdha candidates cited as a model the secular, pluralist democracy in Turkey, where the ruling party also has an Islamic identity. Such inclusive models are rare in the region.

In neighboring Algeria, an Islamist electoral victory in 1991 set off a military coup and a decade of bloodshed. When Hamas won 2006 elections in the Palestinian territories, a split in government, armed conflict in Gaza and an international boycott ensued.

Tunisia's newly elected assembly is expected to appoint the interim government and spend a year writing a constitution before elections are held for a parliament and a permanent government.

Election observers predict that women could capture nearly one-third of the seats in the constituent assembly, a far larger proportion than in any Arab country.

Tunisia's landmark election was widely considered to be free and fair. The vote came a little more than nine months after Tunisians overthrew longtime President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.