Beji Caid Essebsi (C), leader of Tunisia's secular Nidaa Tounes party, gestures after casting his vote at a polling station in Tunis December 21, 2014. (Credit: Reuters/Anis Mili)
Veteran politician Beji Caid Essebsi won Tunisia's first free presidential election, beating rival and incumbent Moncef Marzouki with 55.68% of the vote against 44.32%, official results showed on Monday.
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.
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.
Reuters
