*New president to be sworn in on Wednesday

Beji Caid Essebsi : Tunisia’s president-elect

Tunisia’s Elections Board (ISIE) has officially announced Beji Caid Essebsi, 88 years old, as the new president after announcing the final results of the runoff of the country’s 2014 presidential elections on Monday.

The Nidaa Tounes candidate Essebsi won the second round of the presidential elections with 55,68 percent of the votes (1,731,529) which makes him the fifth president of Tunisia, stated head of ISIE Chafik Sarsar.

Moncef Marzouki, the second candidate and current president, received 44,32 percent of the votes(1,378, 513).

The preliminary results were announced on December 22, and a week was given for potential appeals to be processed by the Administrative Court.

Moncef Marzouki has already conceded defeat the day of preliminary results and he has not appealed against the results.

However,the administrative court received two appeal requests during the past week from citizens. The administrative court rejected the complaints.

An official ceremony will be held at an exceptional plenary session of the newly elected parliament on Wednesday,where Essebsi is to take his oath.

He will be declared president at the Carthage Presidential Palace later the same day. He will be president for the next five years.

Essebsi, an anti-Islamist lawyer, has insisted that Tunisia had definitely turned a page on the past and would look to the future rather than the past.

But Marzouki, a 69-year-old former rights activists, said he was creating a new movement to prevent the North African nation sliding back into authoritarian rule.

Marzouki was installed as president by the moderate Islamist Ennahda party, which was in power after the revolution.

Ennahda came second in the October parliamentary polls and has not ruled out joining a governing coalition.

The presidential vote was the first time Tunisians have freely elected their head of state since independence in 1956.