TUNIS — Tunisia’s first full elected parliament on Thursday appointed Mohammed Nacer, vice president of the secular party that won last month’s election, as its speaker.

Nidaa Tounes won 86 of the 217 seats in parliament, ahead of the Islamist Ennahda party, with 69.

Nacer, 80, held several ministerial posts under Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia’s president from 1957 to 1987.

Establishing a new parliament was one of the last steps in Tunisia’s transition to full democracy, nearly four years after an uprising that ousted autocrat Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and inspired the 2011 Arab Spring revolts.

Ennahda won Tunisia’s first free election in 2011. After three years in government, and a crisis that almost ended the democratic transition, Nidaa Tounes, led mostly by figures who held office under Ben Ali, has emerged as the biggest political force.

The new parliament convened on Tuesday. Nidaa Tounes wants to create a ruling coalition with smaller parties, but a government is unlikely to be formed until after the second round of a presidential election later this month. First round winner Beji Caid Essebsi of Nidaa Tounes faces incumbent Moncef Marzouki, a human rights activist.