TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
88-year-old ex-minister wins Tunisia election
An 88-year-old veteran of Tunisia's political establishment won the country's presidency, according to official results issued Monday, capping a four-year-long democratic transition
Change Size
A
n 88-year-old veteran of Tunisia's political establishment won the country's presidency, according to official results issued Monday, capping a four-year-long democratic transition.
Beji Caid Essebsi campaigned on restoring the "prestige of the state" and a return to stability from the years of turmoil that followed this North African country's 2011 overthrow of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali that kicked off the regional pro-democracy uprisings of the Arab Spring.
It is a measure of the country's yearning for a return to stability after four hard years that a revolution of the youth calling for change and social justice ends up electing such a symbol of the old regime.
Essebsi, who received 55.68 percent of the vote, once served as Ben Ali's speaker of parliament and before that was both foreign and interior minister for his predecessor, Habib Bourguiba.
His rival, outgoing interim president Moncef Marzouki, who made his name defending human rights against Ben Ali, received 44.32 percent of the vote. Exit polls had predicted similar results soon after polls closed Sunday night.
Voting was largely pronounced free and fair, with a participation rate of 60 percent, less than the nearly 70 percent in the previous round and in recent legislative elections.
Riots did erupt Sunday night in the southern industrial city of Gabes, where youths protested the results and clashed with police. After several were arrested, the clashes began anew Monday and two police stations were burned.
The voting split on geographical lines, with the affluent northern and coastal regions ' the traditional home of Tunisia's leadership ' voting for Essebsi while the more impoverished and neglected south and interior voted for Marzouki.
Tunisia's powerful Islamist party Ennahda officially remained neutral but its supporters are believed to have backed Marzouki.
As interior minister in the 1980s, Essebsi helped jail many Islamists.
Essebsi claimed victory Sunday night and reached out to Marzouki's supporters, calling for everyone to work together to overcome the country's grave economic challenges. (*****)
