Essebsi wins Tunisia presidential vote

Beji Caid Essebsi has won Tunisia's first free presidential election, beating rival and incumbent Moncef Marzouki with 55.68 percent of the vote, official results show. Marzouki secured 44.32 percent of the vote, Tunisia's High Electoral Commission said on Monday. Sunday's presidential run-off vote marked the final step in the country's transition to full democracy four years after an uprising toppled long-time leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Essebsi, 88, was a former official in Ben Ali's one-party administration, but reinvented himself as a technocrat and his secular Nidaa Tounes (Call for Tunisia) party profited from the backlash against the country's first post-revolt Islamist government.   Source: Al Jazeera