The 88-year-old veteran politician Beji Caid Essebsi has won Tunasia's first free presidential election since the country gained independence in 1956.
Essebsi beat rival and incumbent Moncef Marzouki with 55.68 percent of the vote. A former official in Ben Ali’s one-party administration, he has 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.
Tunisia’s Independent Higher Authority for Elections has announced the result.
"Mr Beji Caid Essebsi received a total of 1,731,529 votes or 55.68 percent, while Mr Moncef Marzouki received a total of 1,378,513 votes or 44.32 percent. The election authority announces the victory of the candidate Mr Beji Caid Essebsi in the presidential elections for the year 2014," said Mohamed Cahfik Sarsar, President of Independent Higher Authority for Elections.