Tunisia's transitional government was due Tuesday to announce whether it would postpone the election of a Constituent Assembly, amid concern that the planned July date is too soon.

However, the issue of a delay has roused hostility from some of the opposition, who accuse the interim authorities of seeking to gain time at the risk of national instability.

The Constituent Assembly vote, initially set for July 24, will be the first poll in the north African country since the fall in January of the regime of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who was president for 23 years.

The new assembly will be entrusted with drawing up a new constitution and preparing further elections. The government has repeatedly confirmed the date of the poll, with a view to ending transitional rule.

Foreign Minister Mouldi Kefi said Monday in Tokyo that to hold the election towards the end of July was a matter of "credibility" for the government.

But the Tunisian electoral commission, recently set up to prepare and oversee the vote, on Sunday recommended postponing it until October 16, saying that the necessary conditions could not be met by July.

"For technical and logistical reasons, we don't have enough time to hold an election on July 24," the president of the Commission for Political Reform, said Sunday. "There are seven million voters to register, there are problems of organisation, the training of electoral agents..."

The final decision remains with the government, but it seemed highly likely that the council of ministers would agree to a postponement during their debate Tuesday.

The secretary general of the opposition Progressist Democratic Party (PDP), Maya Jribi, on Monday spoke out against a delay for this election "awaited by all citizens", and noted that economic and security problems needed to be tackled.

The same approach was taken by the Islamist movement Ennahda (Renaissance), which experts believe might achieve the highest score in free and fair polls.

"The prolongation of the transitional period will have impacts in the economic, social and security domains," Ennahda spokesman Ali Laraydh told AFP Monday. "Some want a delay to play for time for purely political reasons."

But Hamma Hammami, spokesman of the Communist Party of Workers of Tunisia (PCOT), said his movement favoured a delay. "We need more time to inform and train people."