Veteran politician Beji Caid Essebsi wins Tunisia’s first free presidential election, marking the final step in Tunisia’s transition to democracy after an uprising in 2011 that inspired the Arab Spring revolts across North Africa and the Middle East
Veteran politician Beji Caid Essebsi has won Tunisia’s first free presidential election, official results show.
Mr Essebsi beat rival and incumbent Moncef Marzouki with 55.68 per cent of the vote against 44.32 per cent.
The ballot marked the final step in Tunisia’s transition to democracy after an uprising that ousted autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011 and inspired the Arab Spring revolts across North Africa and the Middle East.
Mr Essebsi, a former official in Ben Ali’s one-party administration, recast himself as a technocrat and his secular Call for Tunisia party profited from the backlash against the country’s first post-revolt Islamist government, which many voters blamed for turmoil after 2011.
Rioting broke out in one southern city, with police firing teargas to disperse hundreds of youths who burned tyres and blocked streets to demonstrate against the victory of an official from Ben Ali’s old guard.
Critics of Mr Essebsi, 88, see his return as a setback for the 2011 uprising that put the North African country on the road to full democracy, with a new constitution and free parliamentary and presidential elections.
As frontrunner, Mr Essebsi dismissed critics who said victory for him would mark a return of the old guard.
He argued that he was the technocrat Tunisia needed following three messy years of an Islamist-led coalition government.
Source: Reuters
