TUNIS: Veteran anti-Islamist politician Beji Caid Essebsi was declared the winner of Tunisia’s first free presidential election yesterday, capping off the transition to democracy in the birthplace of the Arab Spring.
But in a sign of the challenges ahead, police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of youths who burned tyres in protest at the result.
Essebsi, an 88-year-old former official in previous Tunisian regimes, took 55.68 percent of the vote to defeat incumbent Moncef Marzouki in Sunday’s run-off, the electoral commission said.
Essebsi had claimed victory shortly after polls closed but Marzouki, a long-exiled 69-year-old rights activist, refused initially to concede defeat.
Yesterday, however, Marzouki’s spokesman said on Facebook the outgoing president had congratulated his rival.
A first round of voting on November 23 had seen Essebsi in the lead with 39 percent of the vote, six points ahead of Marzouki.
Participation in the second round was 60.1 percent, electoral commission chief Chafik Sarsar said, after authorities had urged a high turnout.
US President Barack Obama congratulated Essebsi and hailed the vote as “a vital step toward the completion of Tunisia’s momentous transition to democracy”, a White House statement said.
Foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini of the European Union, which sent an observer mission for the election, praised Tunisians for sending “a message of hope to all the people who, like them, aspire to a future that’s more peaceful, democratic and prosperous”.
The vote was seen as a landmark in Tunisia, which sparked the Arab Spring mass revolutions with the 2011 ouster of longtime strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
However, the campaign was bitter and divisive, with Marzouki insisting an Essebsi win would mark the return of Tunisia’s old guard.
Essebsi in turn accused his rival of representing the moderately Islamist party Ennahda that ruled after the revolution and which installed him as president.
Continued divisions were clear as some 300-400 protesters clashed with police in El Hamma in the south, where Marzouki had widespread support.AFP
