President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, who has been ruling Tunisia since 1987, has been re-elected for a new five-year term with 89.62% of the votes, after the presidential poll held on Sunday.
His contenders, Mohamed Bouchiha of the ‘Parti de l’Unité Populaire’ (PUP) and Ahmed Inoubli of the ‘Union Démocratique Unioniste’ (UDU) have 5.01% and 3.8% of the votes, respectively.
The other candidate, Ahmed Brahim is credited with 1.57 per cent of the votes.
According to the Interior Ministry, 89.4 per cent of voters have cast their ballots.
President Ben Ali took power in 1987 from Tunisia’s first president Habib Bourguiba, who was forced to resign for “senility”.
He is starting his fifth and final term, as the Tunisian Constitution has set the age limit of the president to 75 years.
During the first rally of his election campaign held in Tunis, Ben Ali had insisted on the theme of purchasing power, promising to increase the average per capita income from its current level of €2,500 to €7,000 by 2014.
The Tunisian leader had also promised to reduce the country’s 14-per cent unemployment rate, by launching an ambitious jobs creation programme.
Source African Press Agency
loading...
