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Tunisia

Tunisia's opposition veteran Marzouki is first elected president since Arab Spring

Tunisia’s new leader, 66-year-old opposition veteran Moncef Marzouki, solemly promised to be the "president of all Tunisians" as he was sworn in as the country’s first elected head of state since the nation’s Arab Spring revolution. 

Reuters/Zoubeir Souissi
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“I will be faithful to the martyrs and to the objectives of the revolution,” he said almost a year after the start of the mass protests that ousted Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and sparked similar revolts in Egypt and Libya.

After taking the oath with his hand on the Koran, he called for national reconciliation and challenged the opposition to take part in Tunisia’s political life and not confine itself to the role of observer.

Marzouki’s first task is name a prime minister, with Hamadi Jebali, the number two of the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, expected to take the post.

Critics have accused Marzouki of being a pawn of Ennahda, which came in first in the  October’s constituent assembly elections with 89 seats. His Congress for the Republic Party was second winning 29 seats.

Marzouki, a French-trained doctor who headed the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LTDH) from 1989 until Ben Ali supporters forced him out in 1994, has a deep-seated passion for human rights.

A prolific writer, he has penned several books in French and Arabic including one titled
"Dictators on Watch: A Democratic Path for the Arab World."
 

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