A self-styled, secular, modernist party called Nidaa Tounes won against the Islamist Ennahda party in the Tunisian election this week. For many, the subsequent headline – “Secularist party wins Tunisia elections” – will seem more impressive than the fact Tunisia just completed its second genuinely competitive, peaceful elections since 2011.

Indeed, in a region wracked by extremism and civil war, the secularists’ victory will strike many as further proof that Tunisia is moving forward and is the sole bright spot in a gloomy region. Some may prematurely celebrate, yet again, the death of political Islam, arguing that Tunisians achieved through the ballot box what Egyptians achieved through a popular coup, rejecting the Brotherhood and its cousin-like movements once and for all. We should exercise caution, however, in labelling Nidaa Tounes’s victory part of a seamless sweep of democratic achievements, or seeing Sunday’s vote as a clear referendum against all varieties of political Islam.

Despite feeling kinship with the party because of its secular label, westerners understand surprisingly little about Nidaa Tounes, mainly because they’ve tended to hold the magnifying glass of critical inquiry up to Islamists but not secularists over the past three years. Counter-intuitively, Nidaa Tounes’s internal structure is noticeably more authoritarian than Ennahda, which boasts representative decision-making structures from its grassroots to national leadership.

Nidaa Tounes, founded in mid-2012 by Beji Caid Essebsi, an 87-year-old veteran of both the Bourguiba and Ben Ali regimes, is described, even by members of its executive bureau, as a patchwork of political tendencies – an electoral front comprised primarily of leftists and individuals associated with Ben Ali’s now-dismembered RCD party and organised around its one charismatic leader, Beji Caid Essebsi. Parties are united almost exclusively by opposition to Ennahda, which they caricature as retrogressive, uncultured and uncompromising.

Leftist fears that the RCDists would be over-represented in internal elections prevented Nidaa Tounes from holding a party congress. Instead the party has made key decisions – including nominating Essebsi as presidential candidate and selecting its parliamentary lists – in a top-down fashion, prompting a series of resignations this summer. Party insiders have also raised concern about the prominent role of Essebi’s son, Hafedh, and say Nidaa Tounes might unravel if Essebsi either fails to be elected in the 26 November presidential vote or dies while Nidaa is in power. Such concerns raise important questions about the party’s sustainability and whether it will be able to overcome its own lack of internal democracy to consolidate Tunisia’s newborn democratic structures.

Critics of Nidaa Tounes fear the party may resurrect Tunisia’s traditional model of one-man paternalistic politics along with Ben Ali-era security practices, potentially ostracising Islamists and anti-RCD activists from political life under the banner of combatting terrorism. Such prospects particularly concern Ennahda activists, an estimated 30,000 of whom endured politically motivated detention and abuses including torture during the early 1990s. Already, under the technocratic government of the current prime minister, Mehdi Jomaa, more than 155 non-governmental organisations were arbitrarily closed this summer and youths, some of whom identify as Salafists, have complained of arbitrary police round-ups justified by reference to the terrorist threat, which Tunisian media emphasises ceaselessly. Some Ennahda members, who decried their leadership’s opposition to a law that would have excluded ex-RCD figures, including Essebsi himself from competing in elections, now fear Essebsi’s predicted presidential victory could pave the way for a securitised crackdown not just against Salafists, but against Islamists in general.

Nidaa Tounes’s win on Sunday, however, suggests that many Tunisians find its discourse of statesmanship and experience an attractive alternative to the disappointments of an Ennahda-led government. Broken promises, paired with a struggling economy and media accusations that Ennahda was single-handedly responsible for extremist violence has fuelled cynicism and regime nostalgia. Everyday issues such as poor rubbish collection and widespread joblessness prompt some to say things were better under Ben Ali, and that Nidaa Tounes – a party whose leadership hails from Tunisia’s traditional, coastal political elite – could offer much-needed know-how.

Though neither Ennahda nor Nidaa Tounes managed to communicate clear policy platforms to address Tunisia’s thorniest challenges – namely economic growth, security sector reform, and judicial reform – Nidaa benefited from disappointment in Ennahda’s post-revolutionary governance, reviving a Bourguibist model of enlightened technocratic management. That model feels familiar here in Tunisia, a country used to its leaders hailing from prominent coastal families – a decidedly different demographic than comprises the leadership of Ennahda and its main secular ally, CPR, many of whose leaders also come from Tunisia’s long-marginalised interior and south.

Significantly lower voter turnout than 2011, combined with victory for Nidaa, suggests multiple dynamics are at play: increased voter cynicism regarding the ability of political elites to solve important local problems, hope that Nidaa Tounes might represent the best alternative to three years of disappointing governance, and the beginnings of old regime nostalgia – a phenomenon common to countries undergoing early transition from authoritarian rule. rule. Especially anemic turnout amongst young people – many of whom say Tunisian politics is a battle between aged dinosaurs from an outdated era – indicates parties are still struggling to craft vibrant political visions that speak across the generational divide.

Whether Nidaa Tounes crafts an inclusive coalition or drifts toward authoritarian models of decades past remains to be seen. For now, observers should applaud Tunisia for successfully holding another election, and resist the simplistic tendency to frame Tunisia’s transition as a conflict between enlightened “democratic” secularists and backwards Islamists. The reality is far more complex.