Tunisia's new president, Beji Caid Essebsi, sworn in
Tunisia's newly elected President Beji Caid Essebsi is sworn in after winning the country's first free presidential election. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).
TRANSCRIPT +
ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION) STORY: Veteran Tunisian politician Beji Caid Essebsi was sworn in as the country's new President on Wednesday (December 31), as part of the final step of a transition to democracy after an uprising that ousted autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011. The ceremony was held just over four years after the start of the protests which eventually unseated Ben Ali. Essebsi, a former Ben Ali official, beat rival Moncef Marzouki with 55.68 percent of the vote against 44.32 percent in a run-off ballot, the country's first free presidential elections, held earlier this month. A former parliament speaker under Ben Ali, Essebsi recast himself as an experienced technocrat. His secular party Nidaa Tounes - Call for Tunisia - profited from a backlash against the post-revolt Islamist government, which many voters blamed for turmoil after 2011. Critics of Essebsi, an 88-year-old who has spent five decades in Tunisian politics, see his return as a setback for the 2011 uprising that ousted Ben Ali and put the North African country on the road to full democracy, with a new constitution and free parliamentary and presidential elections. The Tunisian uprising also inspired the Arab Spring revolts across North Africa and the Middle East.