Kais Saied Wins Tunisia's Presidential Election
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Tunisia's independent candidate Kais Saied won the second round of presidential election held Sunday by garnering 72.71 percent of the votes, Tunisia's Independent High Authority for Election (ISIE) announced on Monday.
Nabil Karoui, leader of the Heart of Tunisia party and media mogul, won only 27.29 percent of the votes, according to official result.
"Out of a total of 7,074,566 voters recorded in the electoral register, 3,892,085 voted in the presidential election," the ISIE President Nabil Baffoun said, Xinhua news agency reported.
According to the ISIE, The Tunisian electoral authority registered 55,348 rejected ballots and 15,912 blank ballots. The turnout rate for the presidential elections reached 55 percent.
"The Tunisian people gave a lesson to the world, offering a new definition to the revolution," Saied addressed to his supporters on Sunday evening, a few minutes after the preliminary estimates of this presidential election, adding that "we are trying to build our new Tunisia based on trust and responsibility."
"We will work within the framework of the constitution and support the just causes, including that of Palestine," he affirmed.
Saied, a law professor, was the choice of the majority of Tunisians, although he refused to campaign for the second round of the presidential election for "ethical reasons."
Saied assured on Oct. 5 that he made the decision to avoid the ambiguity linked to the issue of the lack of equal opportunities in reference to his rival Nabil Karoui, who was detained in prison for suspected money laundering and tax evasion.
The independent candidate has advocated for a radical change of institutions, more decentralization of power and reform of the constitution.