Both were seen as outsiders going into  last Sunday’s election were the anti-system result reflects voters rejection of the political status quo.

The results announced yesterday shocked political establishment including Prime Minister Youssef Chahed and former interim President Moncef Marzouki.

Moderate Islamist Abdelfattah Mourou was in third place.

Kaïs Saïed won 18,4 percent of the vote ahead of jailed media mogul Nabil Karoui who got 15,6 percent.

The electoral authority has not named a date for next month’s run-off which will follow legislative elections.

Saïed’s fierce independence and strong anti-corruption platform struck a note with voters looking to replace President Bejii Caid Essebsi who died in July.  

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Facing charges of tax evasion and money laundering, he is favoured to win more  votes than the 25 other candidates in the race.

It’s unlikely Nabil Karoui will win an outright majority to succeed the late President Beji Caid Essebsi who died in July.

The question is whether he will face trial, on what his supporters insist are politically motivated charges, before the run-off  that will follow  next month’s parliamentary election.

Karoui has gone on hunger strike demanding that he be released to cast his ballot.

This all adds confusion and tension in the only democracy to have emerged from the  Arab Spring eight years ago.

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The Parliamentary speaker from the North African country, Mohammed  Ennaceur, has been sworn in as interim president until elections in October.

Bejii Caid Essebsi is Tunisia’s first democratically-elected president.

He became Prime Minister after Beni Ali was deposed in the Arab Spring of 2011.

Three years later, Essebsi was elected President.

He opened the political space but was unable to bring the property he promised because of sporadic terrorist attacks by Islamist fundamentalist groups that crippled the tourism industry which is the biggest foreign currency earner for the picturesque country nestled between  Libya and Algeria with views of Europe across the Mediterranean.

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