Tunisians vote for a new leader
What you need to know:
- Authorities deployed tens of thousands of soldiers and police to provide polling day security.
- Ahead of the vote, which sets Tunisia apart from the turmoil of other Arab Spring countries, jihadists had issued a videotaped threat against the North African state’s political establishment.
- After three hours of voting, turnout reached 14.04 per cent, election organisers said. Polls were due to close at 6:00 pm and the result could be announced as early as Monday evening.
TUNIS, Sunday
Tunisians voted today in the runoff of the country’s first free presidential election, with authorities urging a big turnout to answer efforts to disrupt the final leg of a four-year transition.
Just hours before polls opened at 8:00 am, troops guarding ballot papers in the central region of Kairouan came under attack and shot dead one assailant and captured three, the defence ministry said. Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa condemned what he said was a “desperate attempt” to disrupt the embrace of democracy in the country that triggered the Arab Spring.
“The best response is to turn out calmly and in numbers,” Mr Jomaa told Mosaique FM radio. The second round vote pits 88-year-old favourite Beji Caid Essebsi, leader of the anti-Islamist Nidaa Tounes party, against incumbent Moncef Marzouki, who held the post through an alliance with the moderate Islamist movement Ennahda.
Authorities deployed tens of thousands of soldiers and police to provide polling day security.
VIDEO THREAT
Ahead of the vote, which sets Tunisia apart from the turmoil of other Arab Spring countries, jihadists had issued a videotaped threat against the North African state’s political establishment.
It is the first time that Tunisians have freely elected their president since independence from France in 1956.
After three hours of voting, turnout reached 14.04 per cent, election organisers said. Polls were due to close at 6:00 pm and the result could be announced as early as Monday evening.
A first round held on November 23 saw Essebsi win 39 per cent of the vote, six percentage points ahead of Marzouki, a 69-year-old former rights activist installed by parliament two months after December 2011 polls.
The vote is the country’s third in as many months, after Mr Nidaa Tounes won an October parliamentary election, making Essebsi favourite to be the next president, but with powers curbed under constitutional amendments to guard against a return to dictatorship. The campaign was marked by mudslinging, with Mr Essebsi refusing to take part in a debate with Marzouki, claiming his opponent is an “extremist”.
Mr Essebsi insists that Mr Marzouki represents the Islamists. (AFP)
