TUNIS: Tunisians voted on Sunday 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.

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.

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 6pm and the result could be announced as early as on 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.

Voters said they regretted the lack of restraint shown by candidates during the campaign but believed the country was on the path towards democracy.

The vote is the country’s third in as many months, after 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 Essebsi refusing to take part in a debate with Marzouki, claiming his opponent is an “extremist”. \

Essebsi insists that Marzouki represents the Islamists, charging that they had “ruined” the country since the 2011 revolution which toppled veteran ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and gave birth to the Arab Spring.

Published in Dawn December 22th , 2014