Tunis: Tunisians vote in the second round of a presidential election on Sunday, capping off four years of a sometimes chaotic transition since their country sparked the Arab Spring.
Incumbent Monsef Marzouqi faces political veteran Beji Qaid Al Sebsi in the vote — the first time Tunisians will be allowed to freely elect their president since independence from France in 1956.
It was protests in Tunisia and the 2011 ouster of longtime ruler Zain Al Abidine Bin Ali that set off the chain of revolts that saw several Arab dictators toppled by citizens demanding democratic reforms.
From Egypt and Libya to Syria and Yemen, violent unrest followed.
But Tunisia has largely avoided the bloodshed that has plagued other Arab Spring states, and its citizens are feeling hopeful ahead of the runoff vote.
“We hope the transition will be over, that the elections will be honest,” said 29-year-old student Anissa Yahyaoui. “I hope that everyone will go vote and everything will go well.”
Major challenges remain for Tunisia.
The small North African nation’s economy is struggling to recover from the upheaval of the revolution and there are fears that widespread joblessness will cause social unrest.
A nascent Islamist militant threat has also emerged, with militant groups long suppressed under Bin Ali carrying out several attacks including the killings of two anti-Islamist politicians.
The first round of the presidential election, held on November 23, saw Al Sebsi, an 88-year-old who heads the anti-Islamist Nida Tunis party, take 39 per cent of the vote.
Marzouqi, a 69-year-old former rights activist installed by parliament two months after December 2011 polls, took 33 per cent.
Al Sebsi’s secular Nida Tunis party won parliamentary elections in October and he has emerged as the clear favourite to be Tunisia’s next leader, though with reduced influence after constitutional changes stripped the president of many powers.
Nida Tunis has said it is waiting until after the presidential vote to start the process of forming a government.
The presidential campaign has been marked by mudslinging, with Al Sebsi even refusing to take part in a debate with Marzouqi, claiming his opponent is an “extremist”.
Marzouqi first came to power with the backing of the moderately Islamist party Al Nahda that ruled Tunisia after the revolution and which came second in the parliamentary vote.
It has refused to back a candidate for the presidential vote but Al Sebsi insists Marzouqi represents the Islamists.
Marzouqi in turn accuses Al Sebsi, who served as a senior official in previous Tunisian regimes, of wanting to restore the old guard deposed in the revolution.
He has even suggested that Al Sebsi’s camp was preparing to “win through fraud” in the election, drawing a sharp rebuke from Tunisia’s electoral commission.
Results are expected to be announced between December 22 and 24.
Many voters are hoping that whatever the result, Tunisia will see a return to stability after Sunday’s vote.
“There have been a lot of shocks and instability, we haven’t seen good things,” said Salem Zribi, a retired professor.
Experts doubt much will change soon.
Tunisian political analyst Ahmad Manai said the fundamental causes of the revolution — poverty and unemployment — have yet to be dealt with.
“It will be difficult because the enormous socioeconomic problems will take a long time to be addressed, and unemployment and price increases will continue,” he said.
For Manai, the election marks only the beginning of “another period of transition”, when Tunisia’s new leadership will need to keep up reforms and restore investor confidence in the economy.
