Related: Tunisian Election Results
Looks like fraud to me.
"Former Cabinet official elected Tunisia’s new president" by Bouazza Ben Bouazza, Associated Press December 22, 2014
TUNIS — Beji Caid Essebsi, an 88-year-old Cabinet minister from previous regimes, won Sunday’s presidential runoff, according to exit polls, cementing his dominance over a country where his party already controls Parliament.
Sigma Conseil company’s exit polls, which have consistently matched official results in Tunisia, gave Essebsi 55.5 percent of the vote and his opponent Moncef Marzouki, the outgoing interim president, 44.5 percent. Other polling companies gave similar figures.
Official results are not expected for another 48 hours.
At a celebration in his party headquarters, Essebsi urged Marzouki’s supporters to work with him to rebuild the country. ‘‘The future begins today!’’ he said. ‘‘What is important is what we do today and tomorrow for Tunisia and all its children. We must work hand in hand.’’
The runoff election, which saw low turnout by registered voters, marks the culmination of a four-year-long rocky transition to democracy, with parliamentary elections in October and the first round of presidential elections a month later.
While the moderate Islamist party Ennahda dominated politics immediately after the revolution in 2011, they were unable to address the serious economic and political challenges in the country, including terrorist attacks.
It is what I claimed was one of the goals of all these engineered overthrows: Muslims can't govern themselves.
Essebsi created Nida Tunis, a collection of former regime officials, businessmen, and trade unionists, to oppose the Islamists and to restore the ‘‘prestige of state,’’ which he said had suffered after the revolution.
There are fears that Essebsi’s domination over the executive and legislative branches of the government could result in a return to the country’s old authoritarian ways — an argument Marzouki attempted to push in his campaign.
In the end, however, Tunisians appear to have desired a return to stability and normalcy after the years of revolutionary turmoil.
A loving boot on your throat is better, yes.
‘‘Essebsi, thanks to his political experience and international ties as well as his program, can get the country out of this mess,’’ said Mehrez Rakkez, a lawyer who voted in the lower income neighborhood of Kram.
He described Marzouki’s three years as interim president as a disaster and said the vote was a choice between ‘‘life and death.’’
In nearly all countries swept by pro-democracy uprisings since the Arab Spring, there has been a some backlash since the first heady days, including government crackdowns.
In Tunisia, however, the backlash has remained within the legal framework of the transition.
The Nida Tunis coalition declared victory almost immediately after the polls closed Sunday and its celebrations had already begun at the party headquarters.
In contrast to the almost 70 percent turnout for the first round of the presidential election and the legislative balloting, the official election authority said only 56 percent of Tunisia’s 5.3 million voters cast ballots on Sunday.
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"Ex-minister confirmed as winner of Tunisia election" Associated Press December 23, 2014
TUNIS — Beji Caid Essebsi, an 88-year-old former Cabinet minister, has won Tunisia’s first free and democratic presidential elections in a runoff, the country’s election commission confirmed Monday.
Were they?
He will lead a country whose young people once electrified the world by overthrowing its 73-year-old dictator in 2011 and triggering the Arab Spring uprisings.
Related: Arab Spring Benefited Israel
Interesting.
The election result is a measure of Tunisia’s yearning for a return to stability: After four hard years of democratic transition, violence, and economic crises, this one-time revolution of the youth has turned to a symbol of the old regime.
Essebsi won 55.68 percent of the vote, according to Monday’s results. He campaigned on restoring the ‘‘prestige of the state,’’ evoking the legacy of Tunisia’s founding father Habib Bourguiba, who built the country and educated its people but brooked little opposition.
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