Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda party, leading the vote count after historic polls, has put forward its number two as the next head of government, an executive party member told Agence France Presse on Wednesday.

"Ennahda has informed its partners of its intentions to present the candidacy of Hamadi Jebali (Ennahda's secretary general) for prime minister," party member Nourredine Bhiri said of ongoing coalition talks.

The leader of Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda party said Wednesday that its commanding lead in historic elections made it the "natural" choice to lead the country's next government.

"It is natural that the party which obtained the majority heads the government," Rached Ghannouchi said in a radio interview as provisional tallies showed Ennahda leading the count following Sunday's poll.

Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda party prepared for coalition talks Tuesday as early results showed it dominating the Arab Spring's first free elections.

Ennahda took 15 of the 39 seats from five domestic polling districts in the new constitution-writing assembly, the ISIE elections body announced, stressing the provisional nature of the tally.

The leader of Tunisia's center-left Progressive Democratic Party, tipped in second place ahead of the country's first free elections, conceded defeat Monday as votes were being counted.

"The trend is clear. The PDP is badly placed. It is the decision of the Tunisian people. I bow before their choice," PDP leader Maya Jribi told Agence France Presse at party headquarters as the Islamist Ennahda party claimed to be in the lead.

A jobless Pakistani father of two set himself alight in a suicide bid outside parliament on Monday and was rushed to hospital with serious injuries, police said.

Raja Khan, from the rural town of Naushero Feroz in southern Sindh province, sprinkled himself with fuel before setting himself alight, police spokesman Naeem Iqbal told Agence France Presse.

Tunisians formed snaking queues in the sun to vote in their first free election Sunday, basking in their status as democratic trail-blazers nine months after ousting a dictator and giving birth to the Arab Spring.

The Islamist Ennahda party was predicted to win the most votes but fall short of a majority in a new 217-member assembly that will rewrite the constitution and appoint a president to form a caretaker government.

Polls opened at 07:00 am (0600 GMT) Sunday in Tunisia's first-ever free elections, nine months after the surprise toppling of strongman Zine el Abidine Ben Ali in a popular revolt, Agence France Presse reporters witnessed.

Some 7.2 million people are eligible to elect a 217-member assembly that will write a new constitution after decades of autocratic government under Ben Ali, whose ousting sparked the Arab Spring.

Tunisian voters on Saturday weighed their choices on the eve of the Arab Spring's historic first elections nine months after the surprise toppling of strongman Zine el Abidine Ben Ali that started it all.

Campaigning ended at midnight for the vote the previously banned Islamist al-Nahda party is tipped to win, with the ISIE independent polling commission reminding candidates and journalists that Saturday would be an "election silence day".

Tunisia's first post-revolution polls risk being rigged, the Islamist party leading opinion polls warned Wednesday, vowing a fresh uprising if vote was marred by fraud.

"There is a risk of the election results being manipulated," Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi told a press conference in Tunis, warning: "If there is manipulation, we will rejoin the forces and the guardians of the revolution which ousted Ben Ali and the first (interim) government. We are ready to oust up to ten governments if needed."

Tunisia, which launched the "Arab Spring" when its outraged citizens ousted a seemingly entrenched dictator in January, again takes the lead with a historic vote Sunday for the drafters of a new constitution.

"It is a historic turning point. Tunisians do not have the right to make mistakes, the world is watching this first test on the road to democracy," a European diplomat said, amid an election campaign dotted with violent outbursts, some by Islamists.